That Game of Thrones Battle Against the White Walkers is Even Bigger Than We Thought

Remember back in April when we said Game of Thrones filmed the largest, longest battle sequence in TV history? The final showdown with the White Walkers will be truly epic, and it might be even more insane than we previously believed. Entertainment Weekly is dishing out the first official details on the final season. Among the news is information about that major battle sequence and the insane scope of capturing it.

At the time that a crew member referenced the battle in a (now deleted) Instagram post, word was that shooting lasted 55 days. That’s nearly two months for a single battle. In fact, it outlasts a considerable number of movie shoots. If that isn’t mind-blowing enough, turns out that estimate could be conservative. Here’s what EW reported:

Last April a crew member revealed that Game of Thrones had wrapped 55-night shoots while filming a battle. Media outlets around the world ran stories saying the final season’s battle took twice as long as the 25-day shoot for season 6’s climactic Battle of the Bastards. This wildly understated what really happened. The 55 nights were only for the battle’s outdoor scenes at the Winterfell set. Filming then moved into the studio, where Sapochnik continued shooting the same battle for weeks after that.

“It’s brutal,” Dinklage says. “It makes the Battle of the Bastards look like a theme park.”

Miguel Sapochnik was the director who orchestrated the ‘Battle of the Bastards,’ so we know we are in good hands. Of course, we don’t know exactly how it will play out, but that is still huge. Showrunner David Benioff confirmed that the battle will not be concentrated in a single take. It will be divided across one or several episodes. Most likely the latter, which will be one of the most ambitious seasons in TV history.

The battle doesn’t have just one focus, either, but rather intercuts between multiple characters involved in their own survival storylines that each feels like its own genre. “Having the largest battle doesn’t sound very exciting — it actually sounds pretty boring,” Benioff says. “Part of our challenge, and really, Miguel’s challenge, is how to keep that compelling… we’ve been building toward this since the very beginning, it’s the living against the dead, and you can’t do that in a 12-minute sequence.”

If there is anything to be said for the final season of GOT, it will not be that it is anticlimactic. There is a reason the crew went to insane lengths to avoid spoilers. This will likely be unlike anything we have seen before.

The final Game of Thrones battle begins this April.

Featured Image: Viserion in Game of Thrones, season 7. Courtesy HBO.