Game of Thrones fans waited 315 days between the closing shots of Season Five and the opening scene of Season Six. For those 45 weeks, the internet was enamored with the fate of Jon Snow (Spoiler alert: He was dead, but then wasn't!). It was a long wait.
Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss had previously said fans will have to wait a little while past the typical early-to-mid-April start date until summer 2017. While this isn't the best news for any rabid fan, there are a few reasons to not completely lose your shit.
"We're starting a bit later because at the end of this season, 'Winter is here' and that means that sunny weather doesn't really serve our purposes any more," they said on the UFC Unfiltered podcast. "So we kind of pushed everything down the line, so we could get some grim grey weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot."
HBO's president of production, Casey Bloys, has now released a statement saying "Instead of the show's traditional spring debut, we're moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule."
That's fair. If you really want to capture the infamous winter of Westeros, it's probably smart to wait until it's actually winter in those filming locations. Accuracy!
And while the show's popularity reached its peak this season, the writers were kind enough to not leave us with an insanely huge cliffhanger. We might be waiting a little bit longer, but at least we know Jon Snow is alive (or undead?) for now.
