'Game of Thrones' season 7 release date, spoilers news: Emilia Clarke hints at 'deadly' meeting between Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow

The season 6 finale of HBO's "Game of Thrones" earned a record 8.9 million viewers, proving once again how well loved the series is. Now, a week after the season-ender was aired, fans are already clamoring for news about the upcoming seventh season.

Well, the good news is, the directors for "Game of Thrones" season 7 have been announced. Entertainment Weekly got first dibs on the information, and they happily shared it with fans of the series.

Among returning directors are Alan Taylor, Jeremy Podeswa, and Mark Mylod. Matt Shakman, who has previously worked on "Fargo" would be a newcomer this season. Miguel Sapochnik who helmed the renowned episode "Battle of the Bastards" and David Nutter would be absent for the seventh run.

Moreover, in an exclusive interview with Deadline, one of the showrunners, David Benioff, said they are looking at two more seasons, which would be much shorter than the previous runs. Perhaps the seventh would only have seven episodes while season 8 would have six.

"We're trying to tell one cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end. As Dan [Weiss] said, we've known the end for quite some time and we're hurtling towards it. Those last images from the show that aired last night showed that. Daenerys is finally coming back to Westeros; Jon Snow is king of the North and Cersei is sitting on the Iron Throne. And we know the Night King is up there, waiting for all of them."

As for the bad news, if it could be called that, Emilia Clarke who plays Daenerys Targaryen in the series hinted at a deadly meeting with Jon Snow (Kit Harington) that would happen in the seventh season.

In a recent interview, Clarke said Daenerys "could kill" Jon Snow. She said, "He could kill me. He could be dead before we even meet. I could be dead before we even meet." The 29-year-old actress went on to say that even Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) could kill both Daenerys and Jon Snow.

The "Me Before You" star likewise speculated that Daenerys could come face-to-face with Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), who took on the iron throne after Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman) killed himself after the annihilation of the Great Sept of Baelor. The actress is confident that her character cannot be killed with her ships, manpower, and her dragons.

Meanwhile, in a separate interview with Variety, the showrunners said the shorter run they are planning for the upcoming seasons would allow them to spend more time per episode.

"Game of Thrones" season 7 is expected to premiere around mid-April 2017 on HBO.