HBO just announced the Game of Thrones season 7 premiere date. It did so in an unconventional fashion: it set up a Facebook Live stream featuring a giant block of ice. The premiere date was written on a plaque inside. Over the course of an hour and fifteen minutes, fans watched as blowtorches slowly melted the ice, helped along by messages from the cast, until the premiere date was finally revealed: July 16, 2017.
HBO literally got millions of people to watch ice melt for a hour. Very impressive. There was a prize at the end, though: the network debuted a teaser trailer for “the new season.” Watch it below.
This isn’t a trailer. There’s no new footage and the lines are mostly old. Still, it’s quite evocative, with the different house sigils rendered in stone, stone that crumbles towards the end. And Jon Snow’s line at the end is brand new: “There is only one war that matters. The Great War. And it is here.”
All in all, this is more exciting that the teaser video we got before season 6, with the characters heads propped up in the Hall of Faces.
#GameofThrones returns 4.24.16https://t.co/WmTxQJJWzZ
— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) February 15, 2016
It’s on now. We can now state definitively that there are just over 18 weeks until Game of Thrones season 7 premieres. And now watch for an official trailer begins.