Iceland will not appear, or will only appear very briefly, in the fifth season of television series Game of Thrones. No actors are expected to travel to Iceland but a small production crew will film shots of the country’s landscape. Snorri Þórisson, managing director of Icelandic production company Pegasus, confirmed the news to ruv.is earlier this week.
The series has been filmed in Iceland three times, both in the summer and during the winter. Whereas the production crew were able to capitalize on the long days last summer, according to Snorri, having only five hours of daylight during November was one of the deciding factors to look for another location for the upcoming season. Snorri, however, stressed that the team had not lost interest in Iceland and may still return to the country.
Iceland received widespread international coverage because of the filming of Game of Thrones here and Icelandic travel companies The Traveling Viking and Iceland Travel, and U.K.-based Discover the World, begun offering Game of Thrones-themed tours of Iceland last summer.
The production crew spent ISK 825 million (USD 7.3 million, EUR 5.4 million) in Iceland during their three trips to the country.
