News

Game of Thrones premieres Season 5 on April 12th!

Posted on by Sue the Fury

GoTWe’ve been waiting for the official word on the premiere of Game of Thrones season 5, and it’s finally here! HBO has confirmed that the new season will debut on April 12th, in the show’s usual 9PM slot on HBO.

April 12th will be a huge night for HBO with three shows having their season premieres that Sunday- Game of Thrones, Veep, and Silicon Valley. 

More beneath the cut:

From the official HBO press release:

HBO has confirmed that the new seasons of GAME OF THRONES, SILICON VALLEY and VEEP will debut back-to-back on SUNDAY, APRIL 12, starting at 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT).

GAME OF THRONES begins its ten-episode fifth season SUNDAY, APRIL 12 (9:00-10:00 p.m.). Based on the popular book series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” by George R.R. Martin, this hit Emmy®-winning fantasy series chronicles an epic struggle for power in a vast and violent kingdom. The ensemble cast for the fourth season included Emmy® and Golden Globe winner Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Kit Harington, Natalie Dormer, Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner. Executive producers, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Carolyn Strauss, Frank Doelger, Bernadette Caulfield; co-executive producers, Guymon Casady, Vince Gerardis, George R.R. Martin.

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Sue the Fury
Susan Miller, Editor in Chief of WatchersOnTheWall.com

108 Comments

  3. How come I don’t get e-mails for new posts? My boyfriend who won’t watch the show even after 3 years of my buggin knew this before me, oh the shame!

  4. Hurray!…oops, I meant Hodor!

    I noticed Gwendoline Christie was not on that list, hmmm, has she been removed from regular status?

  6. Slight chance missed not to have the premiere the week before – on the 5th of the month for season 5.

    Maybe I just want it a week sooner :-p

  9. Meh. I just want my trailer like everyone else.

    But seriously tho I expected it to be premiering on April 5! One more week of waiting is painful!

  11. I’ve marked this date down on my calender. It’s good to see a premier date finally, but what we are all waiting for is some trailers. But it won’t be too much longer, just a couple more weeks I think… I hope…

  13. Oooooh, that’s my birthday! 🙂

    Well, actually april 13th, but when it’s my birthday in Europe, America is still behind. 😀

  15. Nooooo. I really thought it would be the 5th. That’s 12 days later than the Season 3 premiere!!!

    …only kidding. It is still in April, and gives them one more week to perfect. 3 months to go. I think it started regularly visiting this site’s predecessor when it got to the 3 month wait (although I had visited the site before). This is my one-year anniversary, and it went quite quickly last year, with all the trailers, and posters, so hopefully it is equally quick this year!

  18. Hell yes! Start the countdown!

    While most fan speculation (including my own) had targeted April 5th as the most likely premiere date based on the scheduling of the past two seasons, I’m not entirely surprised to see April 12th become the premiere date instead. I suspect that this ‘delay’ (pushing it by a week barely merits using the word, but there it is) has less to do with the Game of Thrones production cycle – although they’ll certainly make use of the extra time – and more to do with HBO wanting to ensure that its new stand-alone streaming service is working properly prior to launch. The demand for this thing is going to be huge, and the last thing that HBO needs is for their brand-new service to be marred with the same crashes, frozen screens, and flat circles of death that plagued HBO Go during last season’s premiere. From what I understand, a different company is handling the new service than the one that worked on HBO Go, but still … give them time to work out all (well, most) of the bugs. 😉

  24. tyjon: I noticed Gwendoline Christie was not on that list, hmmm, has she been removed from regular status?

    Neither is Stephen Dillane , Carice van Houten and Liam Cunningham (others), that cast was Pub spotted on Halloween.
    Form the length of filming in NI we may see more of them in S5 than any other season.

  26. So a redditor went to College Station’s Cushing Library, which houses the original manuscript for ADWD. The manuscript was rumored to house the mysterious chapters that we’re removed from ADWD. While he didn’t find the missing chapters he did make a huge find.

    GRRM outright confirms to his editor that

    Coldhands is not Benjen.

    While this was a long shot to begin with, we have solid proof now.

    http://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/2rtcaa/i_went_to_the_cushing_library_and_went_through/

  27. Turncloak,

    Thx. The editor’s passive-aggressive notes that request further elaboration of Jon and Jaime background contexts are humorous….
    (“it’s been 5 years since we’ve seen Jaime…and that’s a long time!”)
    (“Due to the gap between books, I had forgotten that this happened…In my mind, Jon has been LC for over 10 years, because that is how long ago ASoS came out.”)

    At least the editor tried. 😉

    What a cool way to spend an afternoon.

  32. Boojam,

    I agree with you, Team Dragonstone should have been included in the announcement, to me its a disservice and an insult not to list the one true King, his Hand and the most beautiful woman (damn right, you heard me Cersei) in Westeros.

    OT: My heart and prayers go out to the victims families in the Paris terrorist attack.
    I say heads on spikes (does the Eiffel Tower have any?), in fact I read where many in France want them to bring back the guillotine for these two and any of their accomplices.

  34. No Trailer in sight! *sigh*
    92 days to the premiere… *Grrrrrrr*
    No defintive date for Telltale’s GoT Episode 2 *boooooooh*

    being a fan sometimes sucks!

  36. One week longer than I was expecting, but that’s fine! Looking forward for the marketing campaign to start and to get our first trailer, that should make the wait easier.
    Are we still getting a countdown clock WotW?

  38. Hodor’s Bastard: The editor’s passive-aggressive notes that request further elaboration of Jon and Jaime background contexts are humorous….

    As someone that does a lot of editing and reviewing, it’s not passive-aggressive: it’s succinctness. You cannot just say “change this”: you have to tell an author (or authors) (briefly) why something confuses you, or why you think that thing will confuse a casual reader. In particular, you have to quickly tell them what general sort of elaboration is needed. However, you cannot go into great detail. So, it’s like: “Briefly explain the different assumptions in these two statistical tests so readers will know.”

    Now, I do this with 20-30 page manuscripts, and brevity still is required because otherwise it would take weeks (and you have days), and the author needs to quickly digest your point. With a whole book, you have to channel your inner Hemingway….

  43. Rygritte,

    Oh Rygritte, are you another troll-de-roll? At least (going by the link posted above) you seem a fairly benevolent one with a sense of humour – or am I pushing my luck saying that?

  44. Wimsey,

    Wimsey, it is up to you whether you answer this or not. I have heard someone express a belief that despite the heftiness of the ASOIAF tomes, GRRM is economic of language. As someone who is “in the trade” do you think this is so? I don’t 100% agree (maybe I’m just not a “foodie”, though to be fair to GRRM medieval banquets were sumptuous affairs – as he describes them). There have been times I have thought he could cut to the bottom line a little more speedily, though one must him credit for thinking of the series. Whether one likes the show or the books or both, the TV series would not have existed without GRRM of course, even if the TV story has changed a little. But Wimsey, as I say, please don’t feel obliged to respond, because there are some folk who can get quite miffy even of a very mild criticism of GRRM.

  45. Wimsey,

    Yes, perhaps it is just their style of communicating (and I am intentionally trying to find humor in that reddit post, as are other posters there), but don’t you think her use of those specific chronological references are intended to playfully poke GRRM about his pace?

  48. I highly doubt the ratings will be higher than season 4…

    Season 4 ratings were unreal for a premium cable network.

  50. Hodor’s Bastard: you think her use of those specific chronological references are intended to playfully poke GRRM about his pace?

    Honestly, no: it’s to remind him where the many readers will be. Any way that the editor writes it is going to look like a tacit jibe or rebuke for Martin taking so long. But it is a rebuke: George, you took so long to get this done that it’s altered the way that some readers are going to perceive things.

    (To be honest, I don’t remember if I remembered that Jon was LC when the series restarted: I do know that I had forgotten a lot of stuff that since has come back to me.)

    I can also state as someone who writes a lot that almost every comment from a editor or reviewer is a stinging rebuke that only proves that he/she cannot read, can’t think, etc., etc. Then I calm down and realize that they always have a point, and rewrite the stuff with their comments in mind. 9 times out of 10, it improves my paper!

  54. I’m actually glad that the S5 premiere isn’t until 4/12. If Outlander & GoT started up again on the same weekend, I think I’d be too drunk to anything but lay tipsy on my couch 🙂

  57. House Ray approves. It doesn’t seem like the HBO non-cable streaming service will be ready, that’s sad.

  58. Jack Bauer 24,

    I think it’ll have near season 4 ratings… But to beat season 4 ratings IMO is like impossible.

    GoT is already a phenomena… I mean what’s next? If ratings get any higher it will be crazy…

  59. Woohoo! It’s nice to have an official date. Now the most fun part begins: teasers, trailers, posters, stills, promos, photoshoots

  62. Also from the ASOIAF reddit, someone linked this. If y’all will recall Finn Jones had a beard this Autumn, which I’d suspected was for the show. This confirms that it was indeed.

    So he’ll be imprisoned for at least THAT long then.

  67. Turncloak,

    LOL. Anne Groell’s green pen has the same problems with ADWD as I do. Unfortunately, GM is at point where he can ignore the person who helped get him to where he is today.

    “We’ve heard enough of this by now….” Preach, Groell. Preach.

    Another gem from Texas A&M: GM once went in on an Adam’s Ribs franchise.

  70. Most importantly, who is Janice? Cersei is no fun, Margaery is too young and Cat just doesn’t have the funk. Well, maybe a little since the incident.

  75. Pretty sure Janice played at the Red Wedding. One of the few things Roose Statler and Waldorf Frey actually appreciated.

  79. Jesterr2234,

    Famke was a perfect Jean Grey. Yeah, I don’t see ST as JG….but as I speculated, she would be a good female Thor! 🙂

    …actually, I take that back…..Darth Sansa would be a very good young Jean Grey!!!!

  80. Seemingly random question, but are we all but sure

    Illyrio

    is cut? We haven’t gotten as much as a tiny hint about him showing up, and his imdb page is listing him off as doing other stuff.

    I really hope they don’t leave him out. We desperately need some connections to his involvement in season 1.

    tyjon:

    I agree with you, Team Dragonstone should have been included in the announcement, to me its a disservice and an insult not to list the one true King

    But Renly died three seasons ago.. <:3

  81. Renly’s Peach,

    We know Illyrio’s manse is in. There wouldn’t be much point of the manse being featured without him. So I’d say he’s back.

    Remember this? https://watchersonthewall.com/game-thrones-film-soon-villa-sheherezade-illyrio/

    Conleth Hill and Peter Dinklage filmed there towards the end of the Dubrovnik shoot. Allam was doing a play in London at around that time and had only short breaks from it but he could have easily filmed interior scenes in Belfast later on if he didn’t have time to quickly fly into Croatia.

  82. Greenjones,

    That scene was probably never meant to have Illyrio, otherwise they’d just have filmed there a week or two earlier (they were in Dubrovnik for a while) when Allam was still available. It’s just a friendly chat between Tyrion and Varys at Illyrio’s, Illyrio himself will probably end up being in internals only- which isn’t so hard to believe.

  84. So…while GRRM blathered on about the various pigskin battles planned for this weekend (Go Dothraki!), he dropped an interesting nibble of gossip in his latest blog entry. A few months back, he had “a pleasant” breakfast with Paul Allen. Hmmm…so my favorite billionaire, who sponsors a wide variety of interesting film and science projects, has met with the author of ASoI&F….? Hmmm…one can wonder….

    …yeah, it was probably just a meal between dreamers…

  86. Alexandra Dadarrio is the only Wonder Woman, but she’d suffice as Jean. Sophie would suck. Heard it here first.

  87. Hodor’s Bastard: …yeah, it was probably just a meal between dreamers…

    Rumor has it that Paul Allen was one of the strong

    Ashara Dayne is Jon Snow’s mother (I think that we called then Daynites or Daynians or something like that!)

    advocates 15 years ago. Supposedly he’s willing to bribe GRRM to get this so he can claim bragging rights.

    😉

    Seriously, I could see GRRM’s wolf conservation project being a topic of interest between the two.

    Renly’s Peach: I really hope they don’t leave him out. We desperately need some connections to his involvement in season 1.

    It’s actually much more important that they show his co-conspirator. It’s difficult to imagine that there is something to the plot that only Ilyrio can contribute.

  88. Turncloak,

    What’s depressing? That he isn’t in the one scene? That doesn’t mean anything. He’s probably going to make a cameo, since it IS his mansion

  91. jentario,

    IS it his mansion, though? Is that the same one that was filmed in Season 1? Cause everybody’s already made up their mind about it being Illyrio’s place, but Varys could just as easily explain it away by being “the home of his friend” or something, and it’d be a completely different location.

    Or maybe it is his place, and he’ll just say Illyrio’s off on a cruise vacation to Lys or something.

  92. Renly’s Peach,

    Yes it’s his mansion, read the article I linked. And there would be no point going to his mansion if he wasn’t there.

    It’s not the one they used for s1 because the show doesn’t shoot in Malta anymore.

  93. Renly’s Peach,

    Apparently boxes on set said “Illyrio’s” but IIRC we don’t have solid confirmation on that. The balcony where they filmed for Tyrion and Varys also looks almost exactly like the balcony where they filmed a Pentos scene in season 1 with Illyrio, Dany and Viserys.

  95. Greenjones,

    Nothing in that article really confirms it. Just conjecture. Somebody claiming to have seen a box with a name on it isn’t really the most solid of proofs, either.

    But hey, I want to believe. Just not gonna get my hopes up, cause as it stands, there’s a pretty good chance he won’t be in the season.

  97. Wimsey,

    Hahahaha!

    Thanks for the shout out!

    Nice to know my thought process was once like a billionaire’s. If only that was worth something…

  98. OT: Did we ever get confirmation for what “mystery” actor was filming in Spain?

    Was it in fact

    Peter Vaughan

    ?

  101. Yay! Good! Something to look forward to in a year that has been grimn right from the get go…I cannot wait to see Season Five!!! Hopefully we’ll get a full trailer soon, maybe after the IMAX screenings are done.

  102. Without looking, the comments could be seen as spoiler baiting but I have the impression from interviews that GRRM has a good and patient relationship with his editor. eg she seems to have pushed him to expand it from being a trilogy into seven nd potential 8 books for 8 kingdoms, but a trade-off is that she wouldn’t then add to that by overdoing it and getting pesky about timeframes

    As far as the ratings debate goes, the issue for HBO now is largely official ratings (higher than Sopranos) versus the massive piracy ratings and trying to transfer that across to official channels. This is probably why they are doing that streaming service and hopefully it works

    About time too, for too long viewer/consumers who want to adapt consumption habits to evolving technology have been held back by conservative network executives who want to stick to an outdated U.S focused Business model. They need to start viewing things in terms of global audiences and sell directly

    Seen too many good shows cancelled in the past few years because of the official figures, thing is SyFy replaced it with reality TV rubbish and now are wondering why their rep has gone to crap

  103. loco73,

    The IMAX trailer is the full trailer. It’s supoosed to be 3 minutes long. It’s the worldwide premiere on the 23rd.

  105. The Golden Globes have proven once again what I have been declaring for years….that Nathalie Emmanuel sure does clean up nicely! 🙂

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