Back in August, Nikolaj Coster Waldau revealed Game of Thrones season eight would go into production in October. We never got to know when in October filming would begin, but there are always clues; for example, a telltale sign would be if actors began flocking to Belfast, where the production is headquartered. Well, that’s exactly what’s happening!
Cindy Cross made us aware of the following photo on Twitter, in which we can see Maisie Williams is the first Game of Thrones star to be spotted returning to Belfast:
@Maisie_Williams Great seeing you today on the flight to Belfast this morning x pic.twitter.com/zBZpUc9mts
— Ray Jorden (@RayJorden) September 29, 2017
Undoubtedly, many of Williams’ co-stars will return to Northern Ireland as well in the coming days. Things will get particularly interesting when location shooting starts, in Northern Ireland and Spain, and we get our first glimpses of the characters as they will appear next year and the scenes we will witness in the final season of Game of Thrones.
Great. So shooting will last at least 9 months, maybe even more. For just 6 episodes. In seasons 1-6 it was 5 and a half months for 10 episodes!
I think with that much time Sapochnik, Nutter and D&D will change what is possible to do on TV forever.
Again!
GODS I WAS STRONG BACK THEN!!
Thanks for another good post Luka/WotW!!
Season 8 is going to be epic…
I’ll be surprised if HBO doesn’t show some season 8 episodes in big screen IMAX Theaters.
With filming starting this early, they must have a boatload of special effects planned, if they don’t plan to start the season until 2019. Hard to tell what I’d prefer – a resolution to the series sooner, or more over the top sfx.
So, now it begins. Sadly, we are not going to get that many filming leaks in NI. Spain is much better in this regard.
So they got the scripts!
Can’t wait to see the inevitable set photos.
There are fewer directors this year and also fewer actors. Sapochnik has to film 3 episodes and he’ll probably have the action packed episodes, wich means he’ll need more time.
Season 7 Loot Train Battle and Beyond the wall could be filmed at the same time because they were made by different directors and different actors.
Direwolves! Yey đ
ramses,
A boatload of direwolves!
On an open field!!
Bufferzone,
đ¤đ˝ or at least 2 đ
Do you think the NK will have a wight Summer in his army?
No. Now it ends.
I wonder if a case could be made for it being possible for Bran to warg a dead animal, if it’s his former familiar. Hard to figure how, if there’s no longer a mind/consciousness left to take over.
Is that Lena in the photo too or do I need to get glasses?
Snowblind,
Lena after 200 pounds of Botox and lip injections, maybe.
This.
That is why I bring up a wight Summer.
I don’t know if it was intentional, but there were two sentient wights this season.
If we must endure seeing a wighted Summer đ then perhaps Bran will warg into him.
Firannion,
Actually met Summer and Grey Wind at the Winterfell festival last week- I can assure you they are very much alive!
Sister Kisser,
Pics?
Chilli,
I have been on the move and not clued in… is this confirmed that MS will be directing three episodes?!!
ramses,
Happy to. Not sure how to post pics here?
Sister Kisser,
I guess I’m gonna have to post them somewhere and link them. I don’t engage with the face place so tell you what- I will figure it out soon and get back to you (whaaa whaaaaaaa). Early train to catch and I’m fighting a cold so I better crash. Cheers
Sister Kisser,
IDK either. Link your pics of those gorgeous doggos and feel better đ
ramses,
Will do. Those dogs really are beautiful. They are Northern Inuit, a breed originally from Canada- and evidently these two (summer and grey wind) were the first two born in Ireland. Their owner plans to breed them in Ireland, essentially establishing a new breed. Very cool.
That would be great! If they released a theater version (or IMAX) for at least the last episode (prefer all 6) to show at the same time as the show on Sun – so no spoilers, I’m sure HBO can work out a way, they did it before.
Oops, wrong thread. Sorry ’bout that.
O Maisie,
you’re driving me crazy,
because you’re so hazy,
(please help me complete this silly stanza, Watchers)
as I strut into the long night,
with my queen,
patrick swayze.
ramses,
Purrrrrfect, ramses! (=^âĽ^=)
Someone on Twitter had mentioned seeing Peter Dinklage in Belfast this last week as well.
Sister Kisser,
I’m not sure that’s a great idea. There are so many Huskies, Malamutes, and similar GOT Direwolf stand-ins being surrendered at animal shelters now its a serious issue. They need lots of exercise and care. My brother rescued 4 someone had dumped in the middle of central Illinois, (Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello, and so named with no knowledge of the Teen age Mutant ninja turtles, too.)
Sister Kisser,
Yes it’s confirmed. D&D will direct the last episode. Nutter will direct 2 episodes and Sapochnik 3.
Sister Kisser,
I wish they had kept the dogs instead of the wolves+CGI we almost never see because it’s too expensive.
Rodent,
*Nowy tends
Aemon,
I am trying to wean myself off GoT gradually (as I have been looking at a few reactors such as Hogwarts and Vizor who are still catching up on earlier seasons). But there are other things in life besides GoT like work and household chores and I can be a procrastinator. What the heck has that got to do with Lena Headey you might ask – well YouTube has this way of remembering recent videos so will suggest videos with the most tenuous connection to GoT- I keep getting Dragon Demands (and other haters) videos, but well, I don’t have to watch them and I don’t, but yesterday I clicked on something about transgender in GoT; I thought it might be about Arya having to dress as a boy for safety but no……’twas a video saying that Lena Heady was obviously transgender and there was something similar about Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington. I laughed my head off but from the comments section some people obviously believed it. Where do these people come from (and they say they are supposed to be Christian!)? In season 1 of GoT although they hid it quite well (hooped skirt – big sleeves) you can tell that Lena Heady was pregnant in some scenes (in the garden where Cersei says “When you play the game of thrones you win or you die”) for example. Your remark about the botox made me remember the silly video, Aemon.
Glad to know shooting of season 8 is imminent and the long wait has become fractionally, oh, the teeniest weeniest bit fractionally, shorter.
Sister Kisser,
Didn’t Art Parkinson say in one interview that he used to visit his “wolf” periodically at one time (I think the dog was called “Saxon”) and Maisie Williams said something about the same dog who played Nymeria in season 1 was later temporarily darkened to play Shaggydog.
I second that!
Maisie Williams is so cute she just about makes me squeal. When I see candid photos of her with fans, I react the same way I do to kittens and puppies. LOL.
… and Ghost at your side!
So this mean that the actors have the scripts right?
They already know all season 8 then?
Weird that none of them shared excitment on a interview or their twitter if they really know all season 8.
Firannion,
Wight chickens. đđđ. For The Hound. That’s not asking too much, is it?
BRING ME THE NEW SEASON BEFORE I PISS MYSELF.
Noh.
I was going to make a comment but am now going OT .How does everyone deal with these forced ads that take over your computer while readin articles on this website, even as I’m typing this it keeps pulling down to the video ads and even when I sit there wasting moments of my life to let them run through thinking if I stay at the bottom letting them play out, after a few minutes it will let me scroll back up to continue reading but even then it keeps forcing the page down. I don’t think I have the patience for this .
I don’t face this problem on my computer. The ads that appear on this page don’t open unless I click on them. However I face a different problem whenever I access this site on my computer (a problem which I don’t face on my mobile). Many times I like to go directly to the latest comments section, especially if the article is old and I don’t want to scroll through the entire thing. However, on my computer there is always an ad featured right across the last comments section, And even after closing that ad, I am unable to open that section. It is frustrating since I then have to go back and open the individual articles and scroll down through the entire thing to come to the later comments.
ghost of winterfell,
Yup, that happens to me toođ˛
I think at least the final two season 8 episodes will be shown in IMAX movie theaters…
The end of Game of Thrones hype will be enormous and expand across every continent on Earth.
Those final season 8 episodes will be the highest grossing money making movies of 2019!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chilli,
I agree, wholeheartedly.
Lightbringer,
Yeah, I hear you. I had a husky for 13 years, and have always grown up with mountain dogs (friends and family). They need to run, a lot. I think some people probably get into it without knowing what it takes, and that is unfortunate. As for the owner of Summer and Shaggydog- I didn’t get the feeling that he was planning on breeding them to make a lot of money. I think he was just noting the fact that they were, technically speaking, the first of a new breed. I think he will breed them on a very small scale.
I’d imagine they are under strict orders not to comment on S8 given the leaks last year.
For all of you other disciples of the Many-Faced Goddess out there looking forward to Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane in “X-Men: New Mutants”, set to be released in April, 2018:
Studio head Stacy Snider said in a recent Variety interview:
âNew Mutantsâ is about these teenagers who are just coming into their powers. Itâs like watching mutants go through adolescence and they have no impulse control, so theyâre dangerous. The only solution is to put them in a âBreakfast Clubâ detention/âCuckooâs Nestâ institutional setting. It protects the people on the outside, but itâs strange and combustible inside. The genre is like a haunted-house movie with a bunch of hormonal teenagers. We havenât seen a superhero movie whose genre is more like âThe Shiningâ than âweâre teenagers letâs save the world.â