Westeros

The highly-anticipated trailer for season 7 of Game of Thrones has landed after HBO and EW teased with new photos and the release of the official poster.

There are dragons. And maps. And spoilers, of course.

Season 7 premieres on July 16.

HBO has released the official poster for the forthcoming Season 7, revealing the rather diabolical image of the Night’s King:

HBO also took the additional step of releasing the image in video form, transitoning from a close-up of his ice-blue eye. You can see that below:

EW has seven brand-new photos from the forthcoming Game of Thrones Season 7, including the first look at just how enormous Drogon has gotten this season. (Fair warning: there are spoilers among the images.)

Back in March, one of the new directors to the show, Matt Shankman, remarked to James Hibberd that the dragons are the size of Boeing 747s, and the accompanying picture seems to bear that out.

May 17th is a significant day to our friends in Norway, but it also has a more global importance: World Baking Day! As fans of cakes, tarts, pastries, and all manner of other doughy treats, we’ve enjoyed our share of Game of Thrones-themed baked goods from home-made lemon cakes to Choccyoccydoodah‘s glorious Red Wedding cake.

Now, the HBO Store has fans covered if wanting a quick, easy way to make a Game of Thrones themed cake thanks to two silicon baking moulds featuring the Targaryen dragon and the Stark direwolf. The only question is, what sort of cake to make with each? We’ve always thought a red velvet cake would work very well for the Targaryens, but besides the obvious lemon cake we’re at a loss.

(Whatever you bake for World Baking Day, by the by, you’ll look pretty expert at it rocking one of these mitten and apron sets while you’re at it!)

Over at the “Not a Blog”—which will soon be retired in preference to a new blog, we’re told—George R.R. Martin has taken the time to discuss the recent news that HBO has four pilot scripts in development for a potential successor to Game of Thrones. George’s post is very illuminating, clarifying some details and providing a few hints, as well as a couple of clear and categorical responses.

It’s worth reading, but below are some key points:

The Hollywood Reporter has reported that SyFy, the SF/F genre television specialist which has had a rather colorful repetoire of original programming over the years (B-movies such as Sharknado, paranormal “reality” series such as Ghost Hunters, dramas such as Battlestar Galactica and The Magicians), has moved to adapt George R.R. Martin’s award-winning horror-tinged science fiction novella, “Nightflyers”, into a television series.

Martin’s overall development deal with HBO means that he will not be involved in developing or producing the series. Instead, Jeff Buhler (writer for the remake of Jacob’s Ladder currently in post-production) will write the initial script and act as executive producer. Buhler will be joined by a number of others noted in the article from THR, including Robert Jaffe—who wrote the adaption for the 1987 film based on GRRM’s novella—as a producer.

As usual, James Hibberd at EW gets the big scoop. We’ve talked before about HBO’s executives confirming that they’re interested in exploring the A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones universe after the series is done, but this is the very first concrete news regarding it. Per Hibberd,

Also, Hibberd confirms Benioff and Weiss will be executive producers on any eventual show(s). It’s not exactly a surprise, however, given that they brought the property to HBO in the first place, so they would retain a stake. It’s pretty clear they will not be showrunners, however.

Some further thoughts below.