While details on season eight of 'Game of Thrones' are thin on the ground (aside from Emilia Clarke finally leaning into Daenerys' blonde locks and dying her hair for real and raising all sorts of eyebrows), one nugget of exciting information may have just slipped out thanks to a cinematographer on the show's Instagram post.
'Game of Thrones' fan site Watchers On The Wall was the first to cop that cinematographer Fabian Wagner had shared a photo of himself, assistant Caroline Alderson, VFX supervisor Joe Bauer, VFX producer Steve Kullback and director Miguel Sapochnik during filming of the Battle of the Bastards.
Now that wouldn't have raised any alarm except for the accompanying caption which reads: "Back on Game of Thrones for prep of the final season and the team is back together. Good times even though winter is already here"
Conclusion? Director Miguel Sapochnik is back for season eight.
If you're wondering why that's worth celebrating, it's because Sapochnik was the director behind some of the show's best episodes, including 'Hardhome', 'Battle of the Bastards' and the epic season six finale, 'The Winds of Winter'.
Sapochnik was notably absent from season seven's shorter run with newcomer Matt Shakman and veteran Alan Taylor taking on the battles in 'The Spoils of War' and 'Beyond The Wall', respectively, but with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss previously hinting that each episode in season eight will be feature length, maybe they were keeping their ace card for something much bigger still to come.
And with the Night King marching south with his army of the dead and a zombie dragon, we think "big" is an understatement.
HBO have yet to confirm Sapochnik's return but unless there's been some confusion on Wagner's end, we think it's safe to say he's back.
