Coming away from an iconic role such as Jon Snow has to be a tough transition. Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon that had millions of fans devotedly tuning in each week for about a decade. Kit Harington may feel Jon Snow is following him like a ghost … or quite literally in the form of fans as he seeks to move forward in his career with new roles.
Interestingly enough, the actor is now moving forward with another high-profile role in the MCU film, The Eternals. As announced at this summer’s D23 Expo in Anaheim, Kit Harington will play Dane Whitman/Black Knight in the upcoming 2020 release. During a panel at business summit NEXT Conference on Thursday, the Game of Thrones actor talked about what's next for him after the HBO show.
Now I'm going to a Marvel movie. I'm going off to play a superhero, which is cool. Can't really tell what I can say about it. [...] So next year looks exciting. It's trying to choose things... [laughs] I'd say it's trying to choose things as far from Jon Snow as possible, but I'm back to a superhero. He's got a sword, so, you know.
Kit Harington sounds excited to delve into the Marvel Cinematic Universe but cautious about his new role finding comparisons with the White Wolf. While Jon Snow wasn’t per se a “superhero” in Game of Thrones, he was a main protagonist in a series based in a fantasy world and surrounding a world with a huge fanbase. So the proximity is certainly there. Not to mention Harington’s new character will wield the Ebony Blade, a sword forged by Merlin of Camelot.
Dane Whitman is a physicist raised in Massachusetts who inherits his uncle’s castle and the powerful blade. He is not an Eternal like the core cast of the movie is, but he does have ties to the team in the comics. Dane has a romance with Eternal Sersi in the source material, to be played by Gemma Chan. She’ll be playing her second character in the MCU, following her role as Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel earlier this year.
Not to mention Kit Harington will have a Game of Thrones reunion in Eternals, since Richard Madden will play a core Eternal called Ikaris in the movie. They are amongst an all-star cast including Angelina Jolie as Thena, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Barry Keoghan as Druig, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Lia McHugh as Sprite, and Lauren Ridloff as Makkari.
The team is a powerful bunch of cosmic beings created by the Celestials to protect Earth from their evil counterparts, the Deviants. The Eternals will be the second movie coming in Phase Four of the MCU in November 6, 2020. It will follow Black Widow, hitting theaters on May 1, 2020.
