While they’re comparatively mild as advance hints for Game of Thrones season 8 go, it’s hard not to read into these new reports for shooting.
If you want to know absolutely nothing, not even where Game of Thrones season 8 might be filming outside of the usual suspects in Ireland, then this may not where you want to be.
But, with reports saying that the show has a huge budget, is it any surprise that the show will, according to our sister site Winter is Coming and ultimately an Icelandic news outlet, take advantage of the upcoming winter season and head back to Iceland? In fact, as WiC notes, that’s actually pretty cold, and it is hard to convincingly fake being cold despite furs being wrapped around your body.
Interestingly enough, though, snow isn’t guaranteed, as the above link points out. Then again, anyone familiar with winter knows that sometimes, it’s cold … and there’s nothing actually on the ground. WiC does note that HBO is keeping its options open, however, which suggests that whatever’s needed is for a scene that does actually require significant amounts of snow to be visible in the shot — backed up by a helpful commenter on WiC.
However, will we be seeing somewhere new? WiC brings this up, but we’re going to elaborate a little further. Even as early as season 7 filming, there were scenes of snow falling in King’s Landing. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that, in fact, this might be part of, say, Jaime Lannister’s journey northwards, where he sees snow on parts of the country that he might not have seen snow for before. There’s room to do sweeping shots like that, and time to put them in the episodes.
Without any photographic evidence, though, it’s all speculation from this point. However, to show what’s been going on in Westeros since the last time we were there — or how suddenly winter has arrived with the breach of the Wall and the presence of the Night King — seems like a good excuse to go to Iceland again.
Next: More season 8 spoilers: A vision of destruction
What do you think production’s going to be doing on the island next year?