On April 21, 2016, HBO officially ordered the seventh season of Game of Thrones, just three days prior to the premiere of the show 's sixth season. According to an interview with co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the seventh season would likely consist of fewer episodes, stating at the time of the interview that they were "down to our final 13 episodes after this season. We 're heading into the final lap. '' Director Jack Bender, who worked on the show 's sixth season, said that the seventh season would consist of seven episodes. Benioff and Weiss stated that they were unable to produce 10 episodes in the show 's usual 12 to 14 month time frame, as Weiss said "It 's crossing out of a television schedule into more of a mid-range movie schedule. '' HBO confirmed on July 18, 2016, that the seventh season would consist of seven episodes, and would premiere later than usual in mid-2017 because of the later filming schedule. Later it was confirmed that the season would debut on July 16. According to a report by Entertainment Weekly, the seventh season of the series includes its longest episode, with the finale running for 81 minutes. The penultimate episode also runs for 71 minutes -- around 16 minutes longer than an average Game of Thrones episode. The first five episodes mostly run longer than average (55 minutes), at 59, 59, 63, 50, and 59 minutes respectively. The previous longest episode in the series was the sixth - season finale, "The Winds of Winter '', which ran 69 minutes.
how many episodes are in season 7 of game.of thrones
seven seven seven seven seven seven seven