GAME OF THRONES Reportedly Adding Angela Lansbury For Season 7; Plus The Latest Non-News About THE WINDS OF WINTER

Update 9/7/16: The Angela Lansbury rumor has been debunked. As you were.

Production of HBO's Game of Thrones is starting later than usual this year because winter has finally arrived in Westeros and the showrunners needed to wait for colder weather to set in at the locations where they film the series. So as the shortened seventh season gears up to start filming, we're hearing more and more about new additions to the cast. Last week, Jim Broadbent joined in a "significant" role, and today, a report from a German site called Bild indicates that Murder, She Wrote and Beauty and the Beast star Angela Lansbury has joined the cast in a small role for season 7.

Rumor has it she'll only spend four days filming her part, which leads /Film to guess that she may be playing Maggy the Frog, the old witch character who gave Cersei the terrible prophecies that have started coming true with alarming frequency in recent seasons. I love that guess and really hope that's who Lansbury ends up playing...assuming, of course, that Bild isn't just pulling this entire story out of their asses. Keep in mind, too, that if she joins the show, she could be playing just about anyone — we're way off book at this point.

Speaking of the books and making things up, it appears that's what's happened with a supposed release date for George R.R. Martin's The Winds of Winter, the latest book in the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series on which Game of Thrones is based. Amazon France listed the book's release date as being in March of 2017, leading many to wonder if that was a leaked date for when fans will finally get a chance to read the new book (the previous book was released back in 2011). But Random House (the U.S. publishers for Martin's series) reached out to EW and denied that date in a statement:

“As his publisher, we support George RR Martin as he works hard to finish The Winds of Winter. Any on-sale dates currently listed online for the novel are incorrect. Once we have a publication date for The Winds of Winter, the world will know.”

In other words, nothing to see here.