Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1916997-20160617171511/@comment-24674051-20160617175323

Actually, I'd be surprised if they have not already written the premiere, and maybe episode 2, by this point. But that information is, for now, safely in the hands of the only the writers, so there is little chance of anything leaking early.

While filming starts in early July, I would imagine that roles needing to be cast would be announced prior to that time. Now, they could be disguised casting announcements (such as what we had with "Rumple's Mom" from last year that turned out to be Merida), but they'd still have to have the announcements there in order to fill the roles. Speaking of which, when did we get the casting announcement for "rumple's mom" last year?

Also, going back to season 4, we did get the announcement early on for Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff early. The announcement of the actors portraying these characters was July 1 for Anna and Kristoff, and Elsa on July 3. And we knew at least one, maybe 2 weeks prior that they were looking to fill those roles. (Ok, we knew from the Season 3 finale that they were looking for Elsa). Similarly, I think we got the announement of Robbie Kay as Peter Pan prior to the start of Filming for season 3.

Having said all of that, I would imagine that we would not get much of anything except casting announcements until filming starts.