The cold front is here.
Game of Thrones is set to return for its highly anticipated seventh season on Sunday, July 16, 2017, HBO finally announced on Facebook on Thursday.
The network made the announcement on Facebook Live with a block of ice encasing the premiere date. Viewers were asked to type "fire" to help the ice melt faster as music from the hit fantasy drama played in the background. At one point the live broadcast had more than 160,000 viewers.
Isaac Hempstead Wright, Bran Stark on the series, popped into the broadcast twice (the same message) to encourage viewers to comment "fire" to make the block melt faster. See an image of the ice block above. The live stream ended abruptly after approximately 15 minutes and the ice had still not melted, riling fans. "We will be back and ready for more fire soon. #GoTS7," the show's official Twitter account shared.
When the rebroadcast started, Hempstead Wright appeared again and HBO aired a messaged from Lena Headey as well. "I know we associate fire with dragons, but we all know by now that Cersei has a bit of fire power in her too," she said, instructing viewers to comment "fire" as well. Gwendoline Christie also appeared in a taped message, teasing spoilers and encouraging comments.
The broadcast ended a second time and when it returned Nikolaj Coster-Waldau encouraged some more comments.The entire thing lasted more than an hour. After the date was revealed, Liam Cunningham appeared and said, "I can personally assure you it will be worth the wait."
One thing we know for sure about the eight-episode seventh season? It's going to blow our minds because even the cast couldn't deal with the craziness going down in Westeros when they read the scripts.
After she read the scripts for the upcoming season she took to Twitter. "Just finished reading season 7," Maisie Williams tweeted. "S—t gets REAL…I'd start preparing yourselves now…Scratch that, nothing will prepare you for this."
Fear the winter, y'all.
Game of Thrones' seventh season premieres on Sunday, July 16 on HBO.