The final season of Game of Thrones is now in production, and will feature the largest battle the show has ever seen. In fact, it took 55 nights to film it all!
According to Watchers on the Wall, which follows Game of Thrones production, the epic battle scene started filming in late January and finally finished filming.
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Jonathan Quinlan, an assistant director on 20 episodes, posted a photo of a letter the producers gave to the crew members after they finishing filming the battle. He has since deleted the post, but Watchers on the Wall shared a screenshot.
“This is for the Night Dragons,” the letter begins. “For enduring 55 straight nights. For enduring the cold, the snow, the rain, the mud, the deep s— of Toome and the winds of Magheramorne.”
The letter continues, “When tens of millions of people around the world watch this episode a year from now, they won’t know how hard you worked. They won’t care how tired you were or how tough it was to do your job in sub-freezing temperatures. They’ll just understand that they’re watching something that’s never been done before. And that’s because of you. Thank you, The Producer Types.”
The two-and-a-half-month shoot is the longest for a Game of Thrones battle scene, and probably the longest ever filmed for a TV show. By comparison, the “Battle of the Bastards” and the “Loot Train” ambush scenes only took a month to complete.
Based on the references to snow, we can tell that this new battle takes place in Winterfell. According to Watchers on the Wall, there could also be a big battle in King’s Landing.
Two of the three locations referred to in the message are Moneyglass and Magheramorne, two locations in Northern Ireland frequently used in the series. The third could be Saintfield, another village in Northern Ireland.
The eighth and final season of Game of Thrones will not air until 2019, two years after the end of season seven. Last month, actor Iain Glen, who plays Ser Jorah, said the new season will be full of surprises.
“Always expect the unexpected in GOT. That is what works for the show, and season eight has loads of surprises,” Glen told India Today. “In the next and last season, Ser Jorah will happily become a permanent fixture in Daenerys Targaryen’s inner circle, as the battle between good and evil draws to a spectacular finale.”
Francesca Orsi, HBO senior vice president of drama, also hinted at multiple deaths during a conference in Israel last month.
“It was a really powerful moment in our lives and our careers,” Orsi said, reports Variety. “None of the cast had received the scripts prior, and one by one they started falling down to their deaths.”
Photo credit: HBO
