Season 5

Season 5 of Game of Thrones was formally commissioned by HBO on 8 April 2014, following a substantial increase in audience figures between the third and fourth seasons. The fifth and sixth seasons were commissioned simultaneously, the first time HBO has done so for a major drama series.

The season is expected to again consist of ten episodes and is expected to commence production in July 2014, running late into the year. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will return as executive producers and showrunners for both seasons, having signed a new two-year contract with HBO in early 2014.

The season is expected to premiere in April 2015.

Season 5 will consist of material from both the fourth and fifth novels of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. The two novels take place simultaneously alongside one another.

Production
As of May 2014, location scouting for Season 5 has begun in Croatia and Spain. Filming in Croatia will continue in Dubrovnik and Split (as well as nearby Žrnovnica), but also expand to new locations around the towns of Imotski and Šibenik. The Spanish locations being negotiated for shooting are in Andalusia, namely The Alhambra of Granada, the Alcázar of Seville and the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos of Córdoba.

Adaptation
The A Song of Ice and Fire novels on which Game of Thrones is based were originally planned as a trilogy, to be titled A Game of Thrones, A Dance With Dragons, and The Winds of Winter. However, soon after George R.R. Martin finished writing the first novel, A Game of Thrones, he realized it would have to expand into a much longer book series. The plotlines which Martin originally storyboarded out as the plot of "book one" (A Game of Thrones) were expanded into three novels: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords. Thus the first three novels are in many ways one very long novel - and the climax of A Storm of Swords concludes many of the plotlines begun in A Game of Thrones. Martin even initially planned to make a five-year time jump between the third and fourth novels, to emphasize how much of a chapter-break the climaxes of the third novel were to the overall story (though the time jump was later abandoned).

A further problem was that what Martin originally planned as the middle novel (A Dance With Dragons) grew so vast that it could not possibly be published as a single novel, as it exceeded even the third novel in length. This caused several production delays, until Martin answered the "Meereenese Knot" by cutting it in two: the fourth novel (A Feast For Crows) follows all of the characters in the Seven Kingdoms, while the fifth novel (A Dance With Dragons) happens concurrently with the fourth novel, covering events outside of the Seven Kingdoms during the same time frame. It was as if Martin took the original, too long to print novel, removed all of the chapters taking place at the Wall or in Essos, and then published them as a separate novel. However, the events in the two novels happen concurrently, and the TV series will simply present these events in chronological order, intercutting between the two storylines. This is somewhat similar to how Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was internally divided into two sections: the first covered Aragorn's quest, while the second half covered Frodo's actions during the same time span (thus the middle of the novel "backs up" to show Frodo's perspective from the same day that Aragorn's storyline began). The film adaptation of The Two Towers simply intercut the two storylines chronologically, as it was felt that it would seriously damage the flow and pacing of the film to focus exclusively on one set of characters, then the other. In contrast to season 4, Benioff said that "Season 5 gives me nightmares."

Returning starring cast

 * All starring cast members whose characters survive the events of Season 4 are expected to return for the fifth season. The following cast members that are returning so far are...
 * Kit Harington as Jon Snow
 * Maisie Williams as Arya Stark
 * Joe Dempsie as Gendry
 * Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei
 * Michiel Huisman as Daario Naharis

Returning guest starring cast

 * Roger Ashton-Griffiths as Mace Tyrell

Characters Being Cast

 * Prince Doran Martell
 * Prince Trystane Martell
 * Areo Hotah
 * Obara Sand
 * Nymeria Sand
 * Tyene Sand
 * High Sparrow
 * Septa Unella
 * Maggy the Frog
 * Lollys Stokeworth
 * Yezzan zo Qaggaz
 * The Waif
 * Varamyr Sixskins
 * Young Cersei/Imogen
 * Brunette Girl