Season 8 filming: David Nutter in Dubrovnik as secrecy around set intensifies

Photo: Edwardwexler. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The Game of Thrones production has been quietly loading into Dubrovnik for a few days now, preparing to film scenes in the city that has stood in for King’s Landing since season 2. By the looks of new photos from The Dubrovnik Times, they’re ready to start rolling, as Lannister banners are hung on the walls of the Old City and security is tightened everywhere.

So Cersei is still queen, at least at this point in the story.

This time last year, we could see Cersei in her badass new outfit peering through this window. Now, it’s just a guy making sure we don’t see anything we’re not supposed to.

Per the Times, the production is taking security much more seriously than they did ahead of season 7, going so far as to send speedboats onto the Adriatic Sea to keep photographers from taking pictures from the water. And although we have shots of security guards mulling around the set, and shots of props, we’ve seen no actors. (A fan claimed to have seen Kit Harington (Jon Snow) in the area, but then they deleted their Twitter account, and there have been no sightings since, so I’d take that claim with a few spoonfuls of salt.)

In short: HBO’s push to tighten security is working, for better or worse. Mostly for better.

However, photographers did capture one important figure on camera: David Nutter, the director behind such seminal Game of Thrones episodes as “The Rains of Castamere,” “The Dance of Dragons” and “Mother’s Mercy.” That’s him in the middle below, to the left of the woman in the green jacket:

Nutter is directing Episodes 1, 2 and 4 of season 8, so whatever he’s filming in Dubrovnik, it should feature in one of those episodes.

The Dubrovnik Times expects the production to stay in Dubrovnik for three days and to film at a variety of locations. We’ll see what, if anything, we can see.

Next: Take a look at Emilia Clarke in Solo: A Star Wars Story

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