Toby Melville/Reuters
HBO confirmed Monday that Game of Thrones’ seventh season won’t begin until summer 2017 and will include only seven episodes, as opposed to the usual 10. Rumors had been swirling about the shortened final two seasons (the eighth season will likely only include six episodes) and late start for weeks, but the network only now confirmed the changes. The next season will reportedly be shot in Northern Ireland, Spain, and Iceland. “Now that winter has arrived on Game of Thrones, Executive Producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt that the storylines of the next season would be better served by starting production a little later than usual, when the weather is changing,” said Casey Bloys, president of HBO programming. “Instead of the show’s traditional spring debut, we’re moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule.”