Buckle Up For A Breathless Seventh Season Of HBO’s Game Of Thrones

Now that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, King Arthur and Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant have all launched onto the big screen, moviegoers are quietly beginning to brace themselves in anticipation of a jam-packed summer lineup.

And while the mere thought of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Wonder Woman and, er, Transformers: The Last Knight is enough to leave tongues wagging and wallets dry, there is just as much excitement – if not more – to be found in the realm of television. Or should that be the realm of Westeros?

Yes, Game of Thrones season 7 is looming overhead, casting a shadow down on its rabid fanbase like Drogon soaring over a hapless Dothraki tribe. We’ve had a wave of action shots (see above), along with interviews with long-time cast members gushing over the scripts; now, Entertainment Weekly has caught up with Kit Harington (Jon Snow) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) to discuss the show’s seventh season, and why its truncated nature will be enough to leave some fans breathless.

“I feel like I’d been lulled into a different pace,” Coster-Waldau says. “Everything happened quicker than I’m used to … a lot of things that normally take a season now take one episode.”

But there are other factors in play. While Game of Thrones season 7 turns its back on the tried-and-tested template of a 10-episode season, Harington noted how the converging storylines of Jon Snow, Danerys and the oncoming White Walkers is enough to up the ante – and then some.

This season is really different than any other season because it’s accelerating toward the end, a lot of stuff collides and happens much much quicker than you’re used to seeing on Thrones … it’s so different than what everybody is used to. It’s quite exciting.

And though they aren’t actively involved in the planned prequel series – aside from holding an executive producing credit – showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff touched on the storm brewing over Westeros’ horizon. First up, the former had this to share:

Things are moving faster because in the world of these characters the war that they’ve been waiting for is upon them. The conflicts that have been building the past six years are upon them and those facts give them a sense of urgency that makes [the characters] move faster.

Last and not least, David Benioff hinted at the blockbuster showdown that awaits. Indeed, if previous seasons have toyed with the power struggle simmering between the family dynasties of Westeros, Game of Thrones season 7 will see that tension reach boiling point.

For a long time we’ve been talking about ‘the wars to come’, Well, that war is pretty much here. So it’s really about trying to find a way to make the storytelling work without feeling like we’re rushing it — you still want to give characters their due, and pretty much all the characters that are now left are all important characters. Even the ones who might have started out as relatively minor characters have become significant in their own right.

On July 16th, the battle for the Iron Throne looks set to rage on in spectacular fashion. The truncated seventh season has been angled as the penultimate installment of Game of Thrones, what with a six-episode eighth season locked in for 2018. HBO’s small-screen rendition of A Song of Ice and Fire still has plenty of mileage left in the tank, though, now that the network is in the process of mulling over five prequel pitches from various scribes including Max Borenstein (Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Jane Goldman (Kingsman: The Golden Circle) and Carly Wray.