Source: HBO
It’s hard to believe that the 8th and final season of Game of Thrones won’t arrive on HBO until 2019. While producers are keeping a tight lid on leaks, a certain assistant director surprisingly released one of the biggest spoilers ahead of the final season – and some fans aren’t happy about it.
According to NY Post, assistant director Jonathan Quinlan just shared a spoiler-heavy post on social media that revealed details about a massive battle in Season 8. Quinlan uploaded a picture of a thank you card that was sent to crew members after they finished filming a battle scene in Magheramorne, Ireland.
Game of Thrones has completed a battle scene that took 55 nights in a row to shoot: https://t.co/KZAs7SSHkl pic.twitter.com/XL1A2Z9FkV
— Slate (@Slate) April 14, 2018
The scene in question took an incredible 55 days to shoot, hinting that it might be the largest battle in the history of Game of Thrones.
“When tens of millions of people around the world watch this episode a year from now, they won’t know how hard you worked,” the thank you card read. “They’ll just understand that they’re watching something that’s never been done before. And that’s because of you.”
The note revealed that the cast and crew worked for 55 nights in a row to get all of the scenes finished. It also mentioned how the staff endured nights filled with cold and rainy weather, mud and “sheep s**t.”
While it’s great to know that producers are putting so much effort into making the final season the best yet, the spoiler dropped a major hint about what’s to come in Season 8.
The set in Marheramone has been used to film scenes in the far north in Westeros in past seasons. This includes Castle Black and The Wall, both of which are north of the Stark held Winterfell. The Night King broke through The Wall in the Season 7 finale, so there’s a good chance that the battle is between the White Walkers and the houses in the north, including the Starks and the Free Folk.
Given how long it took to shoot the battle, there’s a strong chance that it will be the climactic fight between the Night King and Jon Snow’s (Kit Harington) army.
The 55-day battle scene was also probably one of the most expensive sequences to shoot in the history of television.
The fight scene in “Battle of The Bastards” in Season 7 – which is one of the biggest battles on the show to date – only took 25 days to finish filming. Producers also enlisted 500 extras, 70 horses and 65 stuntmen to complete the scene. Over 600 crew members worked on the battle, which cost millions of dollars to finish.
With the battle in Season 8 taking 55 days to wrap, it’s not a big surprise that each episode in the final season reportedly costs close to $20 million.
Production for the final season of Game of Thrones is expected to continue throughout this summer. HBO has not announced an official premiere date for the last season, but the show is expected to return sometime in 2019.
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