Last December, Kit Harington said he was "done" and didn't want to go anywhere near Game of Thrones again. A few months later, he changed his tune on the Happy Sad Confused podcast: "I still feel there's a world where this could happen."
He was talking about the Jon Snow spinoff that was once in development — a sequel picking up after Game of Thrones' 2019 series finale. Harington played Jon Snow for eight seasons on the show, and the spinoff spent roughly two years in development before it was ultimately shelved.
Harington recalled that he, HBO, and George R.R. Martin were all in agreement from the start: if they couldn't find a script worthy of continuing Jon's story, they'd rather not do it at all. "I was adamant from the beginning — and so were HBO and George R.R. Martin — that if we couldn't find the right thing, then it's better not to do it." He also admitted that, to some extent, he was the one who pushed to pull the plug: "After thinking about it for a while, I said, this story isn't quite right yet."
Now his take is that the distance of time has actually brought him closer to the character again. "I went off and did all these other things, and now I feel more at peace with this character, this world, and its place in my life." When Harington first confirmed the spinoff's shelving in 2024, he cited the team's inability to find "the right story that everyone was genuinely, fully excited about."
The spinoff was originally set to pick up after the ending of Game of Thrones — following the storyline where Jon kills Daenerys Targaryen, is exiled to the Night's Watch, and ultimately heads north beyond the Wall with the wildlings.
Harington's work hasn't slowed down: last month he was confirmed to replace Nicholas Hoult as Gilderoy Lockhart in season two of the new Harry Potter series, and he's also currently starring in MGM+'s four-part adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities (based on the Charles Dickens novel), which premiered earlier this month.
Meanwhile, the Game of Thrones universe keeps expanding: House of the Dragon is confirmed to end with its fourth season in 2028, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has already been renewed for a second season, and Aegon's Conquest — a film about Aegon I's conquest of Westeros — was confirmed earlier this year. Whether the Jon Snow spinoff will actually be revived remains, for now, just a matter of Harington's softening tone.
