'Game of Thrones' announces big changes for Season 7

Forget winter -- it's all about summer for Season 7 of Game of Thrones.

HBO has announced that the upcoming seventh season of the drama will not return until summer 2017, as opposed to the typical April start day. Additionally, the show will have only seven episodes next season (past seasons have had 10 each).

Production will be based in Northern Ireland, while additional portions will be filmed in Spain and Iceland.

“Now that winter has arrived on Game of Thrones, executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt that the storylines of the next season would be better served by starting production a little later than usual, when the weather is changing,” Casey Bloys, president of HBO programming said in a release. “Instead of the show’s traditional spring debut, we’re moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule."

Game of Thrones scored 23 Emmy nominations last week for the sixth season of the show, including for best drama, a category it won for the first time last year.

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