GAME OF THRONES Season 8: Fire Meets Ice On Empire Magazine's Newsstand And Subscriber Covers
For the first time ever, Empire Magazine has featured a TV series on its cover - although to be fair, Game of Thrones has become more than just a TV show. Get new looks at Jon, Daenerys and The Night King.
Game of Thrones returns for its eighth and final season this April, and while we all anxiously await a full trailer (which should be with us very soon, by the way), Empire has debuted an awesome pair of covers spotlighting HBO's fantasy phenomenon.
The subscriber only version from artist Dan Mumford depicts the moment from the season 7 finale when undead Viserion blasted through The Wall and allowed the Army of the Dead to match on Westeros. The Newsstand cover, meanwhile, gives us new looks at Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and the evil creature that'll seek to end our heroes in season 8, The Night King.
Check out both covers below, and be sure to pick up a copy for yourselves when the new issue of Empire hits shelves on Thursday, 21 February.
In case you missed it, we also have a rundown of EW's recent coverage of the final season. There are some very mild spoilers.
To view the list in its entirety, simply click on the VIEW LIST (ONE PAGE) button below!
The Final Table Read
The last ever table read was, understandably, an emotional experience for many of the Game of Thrones cast members, but for Kit Harington in particular as he had no idea what to expect having decided not to read the scripts in full beforehand.
Apparently, the Jon Snow actor cried twice during the read-through, and he actually revealed what brought him to tears the second time.
“Every season, you read at the end of the last script ‘End of Season 1,’ or ‘End of Season 2,’” Harington says. “This read ‘End of Game of Thrones.’”
Those Movie Rumors Were True
A rumor that showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss intended to have the climax of the series play out on the big screen did the rounds a couple of years ago, and that was indeed the plan.
The pair believed that a trilogy of movies was the only way to manage the budget that would be required for the massive scale of the finale, but HBO brass were not on board with this idea. They did, however, promise Benioff and Weiss that they would eventually have everything they needed to bring in a final season that was “a summer tentpole-size spectacle.”
Season 8 Will Feature Some Surprising Characters
During EW's visit to the season 8 set, they were "stunned" to witness a scene being filmed which featured several actors they did not expect to see. Unfortunately we don't have much more than that to go on, but as vague as this is, it's still bound to lead to a lot of speculation.
Could we finally see the return of Catelyn Stark as the undead Lady Stoneheart, perhaps?
Spoiler Control Was A Top Priority
After the entire season 7 plot wound up leaking online, it was decided that more security measures needed to be taken to ensure something similar didn't happen with this final season.
As we know, Benioff and Weiss have signed on to write a new Star Wars movie, and they actually received some advice on how to keep the finale's secrets in check from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson and producer Kathleen Kennedy.
“They’ve given us a lot of hints about how to lock things down, things we never would have thought of or didn’t know were possible,” Weiss revealed.
The Opening Scene
EW's report avoids spoilers for the most part, but by way of a little tease of what to expect from the upcoming first trailer, they outline the setup for the season 8 premiere!
"Season 8 opens at Winterfell with an episode that contains plenty of callbacks to the show’s pilot. Instead of King Robert’s procession arriving, it’s Daenerys and her army. What follows is a thrilling and tense intermingling of characters — some of whom have never previously met, many who have messy histories — as they all prepare to face the inevitable invasion of the Army of the Dead."
Yes, that means we will get to see Dany and Sansa meet for the very first time, and it doesn't sound like Lady Stark is all that keen on The Mother of Dragons at first: "Sansa isn’t thrilled that Jon bent the knee to his fancy new Targaryen girlfriend."
The Final Battle
"Battle of the Bastards" director Miguel Sapochnik is returning to bring us what's sure to be an epic final confrontation between the defenders of Westeros and the army of the dead, and by all accounts it will be the most incredible battle sequence ever seen on TV.
It sounds like the majority of the sequence will take place at Winterfell, although the battle will actually intercut between "multiple characters involved in their own survival storylines that each feels like its own genre."
“It’s brutal,” Tyrion Lannister actor Peter Dinklage promises. “It makes the Battle of the Bastards look like a theme park.”
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