Kit Harington has reopened the door to a return as Jon Snow, saying he now believes there is “a world in which something could work” for the Game of Thrones spin-off that he helped develop before abandoning.
More than seven years after Game of Thrones ended its eight-season run, the Eternals actor discussed the proposed Jon Snow spinoff, saying they spent around “two years or so” developing it.
“I still think there’s a world in which something could work. I wouldn’t have gone into it in the first place if I didn’t,” he told host Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
“I was very insistent at the start, and they were as well, HBO and George [R R Martin] of like, ‘If this doesn’t, if we don’t find the right thing, let’s not do it,’” he said. “It’s much, much better we don’t. After a little while of thinking about it, I kind of was ‘Look, I think this isn’t quite the right time.’”
The spinoff was first reported in June 2022, with HBO developing it as a continuation of Game of Thrones following Jon after the original series finale. A Song of Ice and Fire author Martin confirmed the project days later, revealing that its working title was Snow and wrote on his blog that Harington himself “brought the idea to us”.
The project remained in development for roughly two years before Harington confirmed in April 2024 that it had been shelved.
“We all couldn’t find the right story to tell that we were all excited about enough,” he told ScreenRant at the time. “There may be a time in the future where we return to it, but at the moment, no. It’s firmly on the shelf.”
On the decision to abandon the project, Harington told Horowitz: “I think I was right, because I’ve gone and done all these other things. And now I feel more comfortable with that character and that world again in where it sits in my life.”
The spinoff would have picked up after the events of Game of Thrones, following Jon after he was exiled beyond the Wall for killing Daenerys Targaryen and eventually joined the Free Folk.
Harington had previously suggested that the story would explore the aftermath of Jon’s years of war and the toll they had taken on him, saying in 2022 that Jon had been left “done” with life at the end of the original series.
Harington also looked back at how long it took him to separate himself from the character amid Game of Thrones’ massive success, and the “weird personality split” that came with strangers shouting “Yo, Jon Snow!” at him in the street.
“I think I needed to do some other stuff outside of it and it’s been a number of years and I’ve done all these different things,” Harington said. “Some have been seen more widely than others. But I’ve done enough of them now that I don’t just feel defined by this one character.”
“Of course I’ll always be asked about him and I’ll always be yelled at in the street hopefully,” Harington continued. “Well, I won’t always. There’ll be a point where people aren’t and I’ll be like, ‘What happened? What happened?’”
“As long as they’re yelling it in the street, this is amazing,” he said, adding that he finds it “wicked” that the show “still has a life” and young people are still discovering the series years after its finale.
Game of Thrones premiered on HBO in April 2011 and ran for eight seasons before ending in May 2019, following rival noble families and other factions across Westeros and Essos as they fought for power and control of the Iron Throne.
The franchise has since expanded with House of the Dragon, set about 200 years before the original series and centred on the Targaryen dynasty, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, set roughly a century before Game of Thrones and following the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and his young squire Egg.
HBO has renewed both series, with House of the Dragon set to continue through a fourth season in 2028 and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms returning for a second season in 2027.
