Epic summer: Game of Thrones to return in summer 2017

Winter may be hitting Westeros, but Game of Thrones fans will have to wait until next summer to see it.

The seventh season of the hit HBO fantasy epic will return in summer 2017, Casey Bloys, president of programming at the cable network, announced Monday.

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Filmingis slated to begin later this summer:based in Northern Ireland but with additional sequences to be filmed in Spain and Iceland, he said in a statement.

"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," Bloys said.

The show has typically debutedin spring, either in late March or April.

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The confirmation reiterates what Benioff and Weiss revealed during a recent podcast interview.

Monday's statement also noted that season 7's directors will include Mark Mylod, Matt Shakman, Alan Taylor and Canadian Jeremy Podeswa.

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The recently concluded sixth season marked awatershed moment,with the television show moving past George R.R. Martin's still-ongoing novel series, on which the series is based.