This may not seem like particularly big news to some, but for your average Game of Thrones fan, it’s huge. According to a Tweet from behind-the-scenes HBO writer Cat Grant, filming began on Monday for Season Four of the smash hit show.
The coming season, which will cover the remainder of book three in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, is expected to return to HBO around the end of March/beginning of April, which doesn’t give them a whole lot of time to film ten episodes and go through all of post-production, but given the fact that the cast and crew have already done this three times before, you can bet they’ll once again deliver right on time.
I’m rather curious though. I’m almost finished with this particular book in the series, which led me to discover that they used over 700 pages of the approximately 1,100-page text for Season Three, which doesn’t leave them much for the next season. Granted, there are some big things to come, but it’ll be interesting to see how they’re able to stretch out the remainder of the book into ten episodes.
The other bit of Game of Thrones news we have concerns the recent announcement of Neil Marshall returning to direct an episode of the coming season. Originally, it was reported that he’d be directing the season finale, but we now have word that he will in fact be directing the ninth episode of the season.
When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. For the past three years, episode nine has been the huge climax of each season. For Season One, it contained the death of a major character. Season Two had the Battle of Blackwater Bay. Season Three had The Red Wedding. So bringing out the big guns for the latest episode nine seems only fitting. What will it contain? Well, we won’t speculate, but as I mentioned, there are still big things to come.
It seems like an eternity until the next season begins, but you can bet it will be worth the wait, and don’t forget, Season Three will be hitting Blu-Ray next February, so just in case you haven’t caught up on this spectacular show for some reason, you’ll be able to do so just in time for Season Four.
We’ll more than likely be seeing more bits and pieces of the upcoming season of Game of Thrones in the coming months, so be sure to check back often!
(Source: Comic Book Movie)