I’ve got bad news about the House of Cards season 4 premiere date: It’s not going to be coming out on time, in February 2016. At least, it seems highly unlikely. After all, the show isn’t even going to start filming for a few more months, meaning that it’s getting quite a late start compared to previous seasons. Everything would have to go perfectly for the show to come out in the same time frame as the past three seasons.

House Of Cards Season 4 Premiere Date: 2016, But Not February

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As of the end of April, according to The Hollywood Reporter, House of Cards season 4 hadn’t even gone into production yet. That’s bad. Last year, the show was filming at around the same time, at the end of June, but it’s not clear when production started, and the late filming run was due to exceptional circumstances. Production for the show was originally only slated to run through July. But a tax kerfuffle almost delayed the whole thing, and put a ton of pressure on the team to get that thing done in time.

This year, House of Cards season 4 production is starting just as late, the end of June, but there isn’t a good reason behind it this time. Production cycles are probably just getting longer as the show gets more mature and the team gets bigger.

Is the unexplained delayed start something to worry about? No, probably not, if everything goes perfectly according to plan. Because of course that’s always exactly what happens, right? If everything goes smoothly, we might get a House of Cards season 4 premiere date for February 2016. But Netflix isn’t committing just yet. They’re just saying 2016, and that’s all we’re going to get for news for a long time.