Photo courtesy HBO

Game of Thrones' seventh season will premiere next summer with seven episodes, HBO confirmed Monday.

Production will begin later this summer in Northern Ireland, with additional portions filmed in Spain and Iceland, the network said, also revealing the forthcoming season will be directed by Mark Mylod, Jeremy Podeswa, Matt Shakman and Alan Taylor.

Because of unforeseen production delays, the summer 2017 debut will come much later than the HBO juggernaut's usual spring premieres (the recent sixth season launched on April 24).

“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,” HBO's president of programming Casey Bloys said in a statement obtained by Variance. “Instead of the show’s traditional spring debut, we’re moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule.”

As we previously reported, Game of Thrones' sixth season garnered 23 Emmy nominations last week, the most of any series this year.

Benioff and Weiss have previously said the show will end with eight seasons and no more than 13 episodes between the final two installments.