GAME OF THRONES Season 6 to Feature The Biggest Battle in TV History

HBO's Game of Thrones returns to TV in just over a month, and Entertainment Weekly — the outlet seeming chosen by the network years ago to officially reveal any and every little scrap of information about the series — is back with another report about the upcoming sixth season and how it's going to blow our minds. They spoke with writer/producer Bryan Cogman and showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss about one of the new season's most epic moments: a battle that, according to their headline, will be the biggest in TV history. Cogman explains:

“It’s definitely the biggest [action sequence yet]. We’ve always wanted to get to a place – story-wise and budget-wise and time-wise and resource-wise – where we would be able to do a proper battle, with one army on one side, one army on another side.”

But who, exactly, will we see on the battlefield? No one will say because it's spoilery, but EW does break down what kind of battle it will be: "Hundreds of human soldiers on one side of a field, another army on the other side, and then there is a clash that is highly tactical, yet character-driven, and shown from start to finish – a 'proper battle,' as Cogman put it." That sounds super ambitious, but that's exactly what I want from a show with one of (if not THE) biggest budgets on TV. Weiss talked about why we just don't see stuff like this on television:

“We wondered, ‘Why don’t you see more fully fleshed-out battles in movies and TV?’ Then you get into the nitty-gritty of what it takes to actually shoot these things in a way that isn’t just helter-skelter chaos but actually gives you a sense of battle geography and the ebb and flow, and you realize why.”

Thankfully, they're bringing back a director who should be able to handle that level of complexity and that many moving parts in an episode of that size: Miguel Sapochnik, who directed season 5's jaw-droppingly cool "Hardhome" episode.

“Miguel did such a fantastic job with ‘Hardhome’ we thought we should bring him back – this time with horses,” Benioff said. “Horses are not easy, at all. And certainly in terms of numbers – number of extras, number of stuntmen, number of shooting days – it’s the biggest we’ve done.”

Game of Thrones season 6 premieres on April 24th, so we don't have much longer to wait until we see all of this action unfold.