'Game Of Thrones' Season 8 Updates: One Epic Battle Scene Took 55 Days to Shoot
"Game Of Thrones" looks like it is going to have some of the grandest battle scenes ever seen on television once it comes out for its eighth season in 2019. In one of the hardest stretches of filming for the series, one battle sequence apparently took 55 consecutive days and nights to wrap up.
Previous seasons of "Game Of Thrones" have their own set-piece battles, the large-scale orchestrated ones that the producers and actors pour millions of dollars and months of hard work to put on film. Take the memorable "Battle of the Bastards" in season 6 for example; that one took a whole month of production time to get right, according to Watchers on the Wall.
That sequence was the previous record holder not just for the "Game of Thrones" series, but likely in television history as well. The "Battle of the Goldroad," also known as the Battle of the Loot Train where the Dothraki horde led by Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) ambushed the army fielded by the Lannisters and the Tarlys, also used up a month of production time as well.
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Put the two massive battle sequences together, and one would have an idea of what it took to pull off the grand battle scene coming in season 8 of "Game of Thrones." The piece of evidence was spotted in a "Thank You" note sent out to the crew of the show after the grueling sequence, particularly the one that assistant director Jonathan Quinlan received.
It's a note thanking the "Producer Types" for season 8 of the show, notably for "enduring 55 straight nights" and for putting up with all sorts of things in the shoot, including all the snow and mud, the windy rain and the "sheep shit" in the locations of the shoot.
"Says it all. 55 consecutive nights. 11 weeks. 3 locations. You'll never again see anything like it," Quinlan noted in his caption, in his Instagram account that's since been set to private according to Collider.
That's almost two and a half months of night shoots in the show's location sets, two of them in Ireland's Toome and Magheramorne, which by itself dwarfs the efforts put into the other large-scale battle scenes in the series. All is done to put together a gigantic battle sequence set in Winterfell, which could well be the highlight of the upcoming Season 8 next year.
Even then, there could be an even bigger battle scene still coming up. It's the King's Landing shoot, and this grand battlefield that takes place on the empire's capital might just rival the Winterfell Battle for the biggest, longest and most elaborate combat sequences in the show.
One thing is for sure — huge battles, the ones that make television history, are in store once the series goes on the air next year. "Game of Thrones" will be back for season 8 in 2019, on HBO.
