Now that season six of “Game of Thrones” has wrapped, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are looking ahead at their final days in Westeros. They have already confirmed that the series has around 13 episodes left in the tank, and that it will split across two smaller seasons (a similar approach that Vince Gilligan took for “Breaking Bad”). However, fans are going to have to be patient. During an interview with the “UFC Unfiltered” podcast, Benioff and Weiss have confirmed that the beginning of the end will be starting later than their traditional April airdate.
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“[W]e don’t have an airdate yet, but this year it’ll probably be a bit later, ’cause we’re starting a bit later because at the end of this season,” they confirmed about season seven. “‘Winter is here,’ and that means that sunny weather doesn’t really serve our purposes anymore. So we kind of pushed everything down the line, so we could get some grim, grey weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot.”
Bringing up the “Breaking Bad” comparison again, this news isn’t entirely shocking. ‘Bad’ moved from a March airdate to a late-summer start in its last leg, and if Benioff and Weiss tell HBO that they need some more time for the right climate to come around, the network will likely do anything to keep them happy.
No airdate has been announced yet for season seven, but it will likely be a late summer/early fall start in 2017. Then again, like Jon Snow, we know nothing. Listen to the full podcast talk below. [Deadline]