HBO is taking the secrecy level for the upcoming Season 6 of the hit TV series “Game of Thrones” to a whole new level.
The network announced earlier this week that they will not be releasing any screeners for the sixth season of the fantasy drama TV series.
Entertainment Weekly notes that HBO probably took this step to prevent what happened last year.
During the show’s 5th season last year, the first four episodes of Season 5 were sent out to pre-screeners before the show’s premiere date and they appeared to be in quick order to BitTorrent, where some major plot points were spoiled.
The network has since switched to a more secure online screening system for critics, but they nonetheless opted against taking any chances, this time around, especially with the great anticipation of the new season.
Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss advocated the no-screener strategy to protect the upcoming season’s content and after some discussion, the network executives eventually agreed.
The circle of people who receive episodes ahead of the show’s airing date are not extremely wide and usually are critics so they can do a write-up ahead of the premiere date.
However, these people are not easily policed which is always a risky thing for networks who prefer sending out copies of episodes instead of conducting a screening event.
Speaking to EW, HBO Programming President Michael Lombardo clearly said that there will be no copies for review of “Game of Thrones” Season 6 which means that everyone will get to see the series premiere on April 24.
Lombardo adds that this move comes amid considerable suspense and speculation about the storyline of Kit Harrington’s Jon Snow who appears to have been killed off in the Season 5 finale.
Collider notes that this just adds more excitement for fans of the Emmy Award-winning series. Not only is Season 6, the first season without prior screening, it’s also the first to go beyond George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga.
This means that even those who have read the books have no idea what will come up in the upcoming season.
The sixth season largely consists of original content but also adapts materials from the Martin’s upcoming book “The Winds of Winter,” as well as some content from the fourth and fifth novels, “A Feast of Crows” and “A Dance with Dragons,” respectively.
This season will also mark the return of Isaac Hempstead Wright as Bran Stark who was absent from the series during the fourth season.
Early this year, the network released three trailers each depicting the banners of the houses Targaryen, Lannister, and Stark.
Last month, HBO released 28 exclusive photos from the upcoming season confirming some of the key characters’ fate.
The photos confirmed that Sophie Turner’s Sansa Stark and Alfie Allen’s Theon Greyjoy survived the jump they made during the Season 5 finale.
On February 24, 16 character posters of both deceased and alive characters and two official posters were released. On February 29, a behind-the-scenes video was released focusing on camera operators working on the show.
While HBO is trying their best to keep its lips sealed, one of the show’s newcomer has just dropped a major spoiler.
British actor Ian McShane is the latest addition to the show’s Season 6 casting roster. Details about his character are still under wraps but “The Pirates of Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” actor recently confirmed one of the most talked about fan theories.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Thursday, the 73-year-old actor said that his character is an ex-warrior who’s become a peacenik.
The same day, McShane spoke to BBC Radio 5 and even went further to divulge more spoilers and said that his ex-warrior character will be nursing a much-beloved character to life. McShane went on saying that the character he resurrects is someone who everyone thinks is dead.