HBO considering filming Game of Thrones on the island of Gotland, Sweden

A wall in the city of Visby. Photo: En-cas-de-soleil. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

HBO is currently in the thick of filming Game of Thrones Season 7, but there’s still more work to do. According to SVT, Sweden’s national television service, the network is looking into filming scenes for its flagship show in Sweden. Specifically, it wants to shoot on the island of Gotland, which seems almost too perfect. (Gotland…GoT-land. Eh? Eh?)

HBO reached out to Olivia Munck, the executive producer of The Line Gotland, a Swedish film production company. “At first I was quite silent for a few seconds when it just fell into place,” she said. “And then I screamed right out and almost fainted.”

Considering how much Game of Thrones has done for the economies of other European countries where it’s filmed, that’s not an extreme reaction. If the deal goes through, Munck hopes it’ll put Gotland “on the map” and turn it into a tourist destination.

But at the moment, the talks are preliminary. No contracts have been signed. At HBO’s request, Munck and her company have sent the network around 300 photos of Visby, a city of about 20,000 people, and of farms and landscapes in the surrounding countryside. Visby certainly looks like the kind of place Game of Thrones would be comfortable. It has a history stretching back centuries, a wall that encircles the town center (check out a photo of it above), and many church ruins.

The ruin of St. Nicholas’ church in Visby. Photo:Arkland. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

One imagines that HBO already has its filming locations for Season 7 lined up, but Gotland could make a fine location for Season 8. Plus there’s that name serendipity.

More as it develops.