Ever since Foreign Policy found a way to unite the two hottest search terms in one title there’s been hand-wringing over what the U.K.’s exit from the European Union could mean for Game of Thrones Season 7 and 8. Game of Thrones once enjoyed subsidies from the European Regional Development Fund. Since shooting locations for major Game of Thrones sites like Winterfell are in Northern Ireland, Brexit could theoretically bring an end to a portion of those EU subsidies.
But according to the International Business Times, Game of Thrones hasn’t been taking ERDF money “for the past few seasons.” The last “With partial assistance of…” credit listed for the ERDF on IMDb is from Season 5, episode 4 “Sons of the Harpy.”
And Newsweek points out that exit from the European Union involves a minimum two-year negotiation period, during which the U.K. and its continental partners will be laboriously rewriting trade agreements in order to maintain as much of the status quo as possible. Of course, it doesn’t really matter for Game of Thrones what happens to ERDF money, since the show is currently projected to end after a truncated Season 7 and Season 8.
So that’s the situation. With Brexit Game of Thrones could lose subsidy money in two years — after the show is over — that it already doesn’t take in the first place.
As HBO pointed out in a statement, “We do not anticipate that the result of the EU Referendum will have any material effect on HBO producing Game of Thrones.” Anyone who says otherwise is just excited to squeeze “Brexit” and “Game of Thrones ” in the same headline.
