HBO Developing Jon Snow Spin-off

[LongRider]

The show will be about Jon Snow searching beyond the Wall for his lost direwolf, Ghost.  The direwolf apparently disappeared in the previous series and is still missing.

 

[The Bard of Banefort]

4 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

But which desperate move by HBO were you referring to?

Oh, just that they’re trying to make more money by creating a totally unnecessary sequel.

[Mithras]

King Bran’s reign proceeds as bad as one can expect. Lots of disgruntled subjects. After a while, people realize that the seasons have not returned to normal. King Bran doesn’t know the reason why. More disgruntled subjects. Perhaps King Bran doesn’t have the best story after all. Eventually, it is found out or at least theorized that something must be done at the Heart of Winter to restore the balance to the seasons. However, no one can travel there before freezing to death. It doesn’t take a genius to suggest that Drogon can be used for that purpose. But the problem is, no one knows where Drogon is or whether he is still alive. Even if Drogon is to be found, there aren’t many people dumb enough to try mounting him. Enter Jon. Call to Adventure. Adventure stinks. Along the way, we get to the bottom of what really happened in the ancient past to throw seasons out of balance and how to restore it. It turns out magic should be wiped out. Who would have thought!.. Jon eventually finds the trace of Drogon and travels to Asshai to claim him. He reunites with Arya there and learns that she has circumvented the world. Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle. Finally they locate Drogon in a cave. When they approach him, they come across undead Dany beside the dragon. Arya still has the Valyrian Steel dagger...

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

30 minutes ago, Mithras said:

Perhaps King Bran doesn’t have the best story after all.

King Bran is busy ruling the Realm and doesn't have time to tell his story, which leads to massive revolts across the 7 kingdoms.

[Vaith]

I'm very uncertain if Kit Harington would even come back for this. After eight seasons, a lot of actors seemed exhausted, and were on the verge of being typecast. Harington has a bunch of other projects, and I do think he'd need to be paid a huge amount to consider even coming back. From what I have heard about the way the rights were sold, HBO also couldn't order some sequel like this without Martin's approval.

From what I was hearing even back in 2019 (about the spin-off pitches they were considering even in 2017), no sequels were considered: even something like an Arya sequel, which would have had more hooks to play with and more foreshadowing. Since then, the backlash to the last seasons makes it unlikely they'd want to play with the future of a timeline most people disliked rather than being able to tell stories that aren't connected.

While I don't think it's a "marketing stunt", there's something fishy about this, and I would not be surprised if this just fizzled away or we got a clarification that it's definitely not happening.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

47 minutes ago, Vaith said:

While I don't think it's a "marketing stunt", there's something fishy about this, and I would not be surprised if this just fizzled away or we got a clarification that it's definitely not happening.

The worst case scenario is that there is so little interest in HotD, that they feel the need to go back to GoT.

[ATaleofSalt&Onions]

I think this is probably a bad idea because the ending of the show leaves such a rotten foundation from which to build up, but at the same time I'm oddly more positive about this possibility because the ending was bad. If it was good my view would be that there was no reason to add on and that they should leave it alone and not risk ruining it. With the ending as bad as it was you can't really make it any worse. 

Presumably this show will start off with a narrow focus on Jon, but if it's successful I would be surprised if HBO didn't try to milk it by following up with a broader continuation of the story. I understand people who think there's nothing worth building on given how bad the ending was. But IMO there are some possibilities that - if (big "if," I know) you can set aside how they got to the current situation - could be intriguing enough with a good writing team for me to give it a chance.

There should logically be a lot of unrest in the South and dissatisfaction with the new regime. Sansa should be in a precarious position in the North as their first ever female ruler, and one who is unmarried and has no heir (with Arya MIA). There's also Arya's journey to the west to follow along. The big ???'s are what does it ultimately build to. There's got to be a payoff at the end to make the idea worth it. What could that be? A lot of people throw out the idea of Evil Bran. I could see that, but IMO I'd take a different route. I would retcon the NK's defeat as a temporary one - sort of like how Isildur defeating Sauron didn't permanently vanquish him, or how Voldemort came back after his failed effort to kill baby Harry Potter. In the fantasy genre IMO there's more than enough plausibility to this idea to make it viable, and it would provide another chance to do the WW plotline justice and provide a better resolution to Jon and Bran's arcs. For that matter, it would provide a reasonable basis for Bran to want to become king at the end (so he'd be in a position to prepare and lead the realm against the WWers and permanently defeat them), though it doesn't explain why anyone would have voted for him tbf.  An optional addition to this storyline could be a Daenerys resurrection. I have no doubt that would be controversial and understand any negative attitudes with it but I think you could do a lot of interesting stuff with it. I also think that given the ending to GOT (Drogon flying off with her body to the east) and that the WWers aren't defeated in this scenario, there's a reasonable in-universe basis for her coming back. 

FTR, I'm not really basing these ideas with the books in mind at all. At this point I view them as more or less totally separate things and any continuation of GOT would probably not have much to do with GRRM's story, which we'll be very lucky to ever even get the conclusion to.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Talk of a Jon Snow show has piqued my interest in HOTD’s performance even further. Perhaps it’s a tide that will lift all boats in viewership, but Snow is definitely overshadowing HOTD right now. Of course, HOTD is certainly at a disadvantage. If it fails to perform, however, I could see HBO going to opposite direction and setting shows far in the future instead (that is, if audiences don’t develop GOT fatigue).

10 minutes ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

I think this is probably a bad idea because the ending of the show leaves such a rotten foundation from which to build up, but at the same time I'm oddly more positive about this possibility because the ending was bad. If it was good my view would be that there was no reason to add on and that they should leave it alone and not risk ruining it. With the ending as bad as it was you can't really make it any worse. 

Presumably this show will start off with a narrow focus on Jon, but if it's successful I would be surprised if HBO didn't try to milk it by following up with a broader continuation of the story. I understand people who think there's nothing worth building on given how bad the ending was. But IMO there are some possibilities that - if (big "if," I know) you can set aside how they got to the current situation - could be intriguing enough with a good writing team for me to give it a chance.

There should logically be a lot of unrest in the South and dissatisfaction with the new regime. Sansa should be in a precarious position in the North as their first ever female ruler, and one who is unmarried and has no heir (with Arya MIA). There's also Arya's journey to the west to follow along. The big ???'s are what does it ultimately build to. There's got to be a payoff at the end to make the idea worth it. What could that be? A lot of people throw out the idea of Evil Bran. I could see that, but IMO I'd take a different route. I would retcon the NK's defeat as a temporary one - sort of like how Isildur defeating Sauron didn't permanently vanquish him, or how Voldemort came back after his failed effort to kill baby Harry Potter. In the fantasy genre IMO there's more than enough plausibility to this idea to make it viable, and it would provide another chance to do the WW plotline justice and provide a better resolution to Jon and Bran's arcs. For that matter, it would provide a reasonable basis for Bran to want to become king at the end (so he'd be in a position to prepare and lead the realm against the WWers and permanently defeat them), though it doesn't explain why anyone would have voted for him tbf.  An optional addition to this storyline could be a Daenerys resurrection. I have no doubt that would be controversial and understand any negative attitudes with it but I think you could do a lot of interesting stuff with it. I also think that given the ending to GOT (Drogon flying off with her body to the east) and that the WWers aren't defeated in this scenario, there's a reasonable in-universe basis for her coming back. 

FTR, I'm not really basing these ideas with the books in mind at all. At this point I view them as more or less totally separate things and any continuation of GOT would probably not have much to do with GRRM's story, which we'll be very lucky to ever even get the conclusion to.

I feel similarly. It’s all just fanfiction at this point.

[Vaith]

At this point a lot of people are definitely speculating 'Season 9' rather than a Jon spin-off specifically. Season 9 would be an interesting if messy idea though - imo no-one can make the way the show ended seem good, but if a bunch of actually skilled writers handled it... could it paper over the cracks enough for a casual audience?

I also think the far future is off-limits. At that point, you'd have all the messiness of the way GoT ended to deal with, and none of the fanservice. So much easier to pick something that happened in the past that there's at least some vague outline for in TWOIAF. Would the hook be 'Westeros with guns'?

I'm also not that worried about HOTD underperforming, really - both of its teasers and trailers so far were very popular. It likely won't become the exact same cultural giant that GoT was, but it'll perform very well.

[SeanF]

There are plenty of good fanfics that explore the post Season 8 world, and clear up at least some of the plotholes, and abrupt shifts in character.  I just don't trust HBO to write good fanfiction. 

What I expect is something like this.   Tyrion and Bronn will be exchanging hilarious banter about whores and brothels. The North will be flourishing under “the smartest woman I know”. Jon will be having jolly adventures with Tormund, Ghost, and some hot wildling chicks, who form his harem. Everyone will agree he did the right thing in stabbing the foreign whore to death. The slavers will be back running things in the East, and that will be good, because they know how to run the economy.  The Unsullied all died of butterfly fever, so that got them out of the way.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-spinoff-twitter-1235298862/

Apparently, GoT is the most mentioned show on Twitter right now. So if HBO wanted attention, they got it.

[The Bard of Banefort]

I think that the biggest hurdle that HOTD is facing is probably the economy. I’ve been told that HBO measures success in new subscribers, but I can’t see how many subscribers they’d need to make up for such an insanely massive budget. And between inflation/a likely recession on the horizon, I suspect streaming subscriptions will be the first to go for a lot of people. It probably will be the most pirated show of the year though.

[BalerionTheCat]

HOTD seems pretty OK so far for me.

If the talk is how bad GOT's ending was. And the North fans still remember. It could be negative for HOTD.

I would not be talking post GOT S8 right now. HBO has other promising projects for Westeros.

[The Dragon Demands]

....Emilia Clarke just confirmed that the Jon Snow sequel is real. 

Quote

And it will be hard to avoid the planned Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, which is set to premiere on HBO in August.

Clarke will be watching and is "fascinated" to see what it will be like, before reflecting: "It's going to be weird as hell.

"I'm going to watch this as a fresh viewer because it's [set] a be-jillion years before our show, so it's going to feel different."

And in response to a story in The Hollywood Reporter that Kit Harington will reprise his role as Jon Snow in a Game of Thrones sequel, Clarke says: "He has told me about it. And I know it exists. It's happening."

Then, perhaps realising she may have said more than she should have, she adds: "It's been created by Kit as far as I can understand, so he's in it from the ground up. So what you will be watching, hopefully, if it happens, is certified by Kit Harington."

Which raises the question - would she ever consider appearing in a spin-off to Game of Thrones, or is she done with dragons?

"No, I think I'm done," she says firmly and laughs. Emilia Clarke is ready to move on.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-61896580

 

....Wow.

...Maybe this isn't a cash grab by HBO's new masters at Discovery (though they would be very happy).

.....if it's true that this is "Kit Harington's creation"....big "if"...maybe this is a giant screw-you from Harington that Season 8 was "the perfect ending" for his character. Maybe he's fully aware of all the backlash to the character he played for a decade and HE wants the last word on him instead of Benioff and Weiss. 

[Vaith]

Just saw the BBC article. Wow lmao. This is so bizarre.

[The Bard of Banefort]

It sounds like he might be a co-producer then. And Emilia sounds pretty confident that it’ll be greenlit. 

[Ran]

So my speculation that this idea originated in Harington's camp doesn't seem totally crazy, though admittedly I thought his wife's involvement in an HBO project might have been a catalyst and that's up in the air.

It also provides some nuance to Joanna Robinson having "heard" that George is "all in". George is very fond of the young actors of GoT, and I think he could never find it in his heart to say no if one of them pitched a project to him so long as it made at least a modicum of sense. 

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

....Emilia Clarke just confirmed that the Jon Snow sequel is real. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-61896580

 

....Wow.

...Maybe this isn't a cash grab by HBO's new masters at Discovery (though they would be very happy).

.....if it's true that this is "Kit Harington's creation"....big "if"...maybe this is a giant screw-you from Harington that Season 8 was "the perfect ending" for his character. Maybe he's fully aware of all the backlash to the character he played for a decade and HE wants the last word on him instead of Benioff and Weiss. 

Had I played Jon Snow I would certainly not be happy at the way I was written in the last two seasons.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

9 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Maybe he's fully aware of all the backlash to the character he played for a decade and HE wants the last word on him instead of Benioff and Weiss. 

That could be true, but this project is still a terrible idea.

[The Dragon Demands]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

it also provides some nuance to Joanna Robinson having "heard" that George is "all in". George is very fond of the young actors of GoT, and I think he could never find it in his heart to say no if one of them pitched a project to him so long as it made at least a modicum of sense. 

Well, that’s our best case scenario now.