IMDb was recently updated to include the alleged premiere date for Game of Thrones Season 7: June 25, 2017. Some outlets have already taken that development and run with it, but it’s worth remembering that IMDb is far from a foolproof indicator of when a movie or TV show will be released, or who’s going to be in it. We need only to remember that, two months before Game of Thrones Season 5 premiered, the site listed Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark) as appearing in the Season 5 finale, in the role of a “Hooded Woman.” Obviously, that didn’t pan out, but it created enough buzz for Vanity Fair to report on it.
The information on IMDb, for those interested, is updated in a way similar to the information on Wikipedia—any user can make edits. After they submit information, it goes through “a series of consistency checks” before being posted. However, as an IMDb spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter in 2012, “Given the sheer volume of the information, occasional mistakes are inevitable, and, when reported, they are promptly fixed.” Also, the info on IMDb, unlike on Wikipedia, doesn’t have citations, nor does it have [citation needed] markers when the source is questionable.
The upside of all this: while the IMDb date could be accurate, don’t believe it until someone else—preferably HBO—confirms it. As of right now, all we can be sure of is that Season 7 will premiere at some point during the summer of 2017. Here’s to another five months of waiting.
UPDATE: IMDb no longer lists the Season 7 premiere date as June 25, so it looks like it keeps its word about mistakes being “promptly fixed.” Here, a look into the past: