Fantasies come alive

When the premiere date of “Game of Thrones” was announced, a block of ice was melted live online to reveal the July 16 start of the new season.

More than 100,000 people watched the hour-long Facebook Live stream of a block of ice being melted slowly by blasts of fire. It was interrupted by a few technical difficulties when the stream cut to black.

The highly anticipated seventh season of “Game of Thrones,” taglined “The Great War is Here,” has been moved to summer from its usual spring air date this year as filming of the show was delayed to capture scenes of winter for the show’s fictional realm of Westeros.

Emmy-winning “Game of Thrones,” based on George RR Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” books, follows the epic fantasy of a multi-generational struggle for control of the Iron Throne seat of the Seven Kingdoms.

A teaser trailer released shows the crests of the warring families crumbling to ash, with voices of key characters heard speaking phrases from past seasons in a timeline of events that have led to the battle. The producers of ‘Game Of Thrones’ have shared the time actor Kit Harington played a crafty prank on them.

Harington plays one of the show’s most popular characters, Jon Snow, who is known for his distinctive long, curly hair. Knowing this, the actor decided to wind up showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss.

“The actors are supposed to look the same, more or less, between seasons,” Benioff revealed at the show’s SXSW panel.

“Kit said he was getting annoyed because he wanted to cut his hair. He sent us a picture and he looked like a skinhead, and we were like, ‘Ugh, we’re going to have to get a Prince Charming wig.’”

According to Variety, the situation was so serious that HBO’s lawyers got involved and contacted Harington’s agents.

However, it turned out that Harington had pranked them all by sending a picture that was actually five years old.

Meanwhile, the producers of ‘Game of Thrones’ have confirmed that Ed Sheeran will make a cameo appearance in the show’s seventh season.

At the very end, the voice of resurrected Night Watch leader Jon Snow says, “The same thing coming for all of us. There’s only one war that matters. The great war. And it is here.”

“Game of Thrones” is the most-watched show on Time Warner Inc’s premium cable network HBO, averaging around 25 million viewers for its sixth season. The saga will conclude with its eighth season next year.