Game of Thrones is waiting for winter before they film the next season

Los Angeles - Following the just-concluded 6th season of Game of Thrones on M-Net Edge (DStv 102), the next season set for 2017 will be delayed as the hit global fantasy drama series is literally waiting for winter.

Co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss told UFC Unfiltered in a podcast that the show's sprawling production needs real-life bad winter weather for the upcoming seasons.

The 7th and 8th Game of Thrones seasons will also be shorter in episode number (around 7 episodes) than the 10 per season of the previous ones.

"We don't have an air date yet," said David Benioff. "We're starting a bit later because at the end of this season, 'Winter is here' - and that means that sunny weather doesn't really serve our purposes any more."

"So we kind of pushed everything down the line, so we could get some grim, grey weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot."

It means that Game of Thrones won't be starting in April 2017 but later next year. The change to winter weather means that Game of Thrones will literally look darker than before.

Listen to the podcast here from the 26:00 minute mark