Game of Thrones 2017 preview: What’s on the way this year
When is the Season 7 premiere?
Just like Bran Stark, Season 7 will be a summer child. As of the writing of this article, HBO has not released a firm premiere date, but it’ll be out at some point in the summer of 2017.
Why is the season premiering later than usual? Because filming started later than usual. During a visit to the UFC Unfiltered podcast, Weiss and Benioff explained that it was all about the weather.
"We’re starting a bit later because, you know, at the end of this season, winter is here, and that means that sunny weather doesn’t really serve our purposes any more. We kind of pushed everything down the line so we could get some grim, gray weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot."
Production for the penultimate season quietly began a couple of months after Season 6 wrapped on HBO. Like we said, there will only be seven episodes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’re be less Game of Thrones to go around. As Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) said in a Facebook interview September, “We’re shooting for just as long, so there’s just as much content. And you guys will not be disappointed.”
Unfortunately, pushing the premiere date back means Game of Thrones Season 7 will be taken out of the 2017 Emmy race, since the eligibility period ends May 31st. It’ll eligible for the 2018 Emmys, though.