Kit Harington Leads MGM+ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ Trailer Ahead of September Premiere

The A Tale of Two Cities MGM+ trailer debuted August 12, giving viewers their first extended look at Kit Harington as Sydney Carton in a new four-part television adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel. The drama premieres September 6 on MGM+ and stars Harington alongside François Civil and Mirren Mack in a story built around political turmoil, family secrets and a complicated romantic triangle.

MGM+ confirmed the trailer and premiere date in an official announcement Wednesday. The series is set between London and Paris during a period of conflict between Britain and France, reworking one of Dickens’ best-known novels for a contemporary television audience while preserving its central characters and themes.

A Tale of Two Cities MGM+ trailer introduces a new Sydney Carton

The official MGM+ trailer announcement positions Harington’s Sydney Carton as a brilliant but troubled young lawyer who becomes entangled in the lives of Lucie Manette and Charles Darnay.

Mirren Mack plays Lucie, whose life changes after she learns that her father, presumed dead for nearly two decades, may still be alive in Paris. François Civil plays Darnay, the French émigré who delivers that information before he is arrested and accused of treason.

Lucie turns to Carton for help, creating the relationship at the center of the adaptation. The trailer emphasizes both the emotional triangle between the three characters and the broader political instability surrounding them.

The Hollywood Reporter independently confirmed the August 12 trailer release and the September 6 premiere for the four-part series.

Kit Harington returns to sweeping period drama

Harington is closely associated with large-scale historical and fantasy storytelling through his years playing Jon Snow on Game of Thrones, but his role in A Tale of Two Cities centers on a very different kind of conflict.

Sydney Carton is an intelligent but self-destructive lawyer whose emotional connection to Lucie becomes one of the defining threads in Dickens’ novel. Harington told People that the production approached the story as a modern love triangle within a turbulent political world.

Harington also serves as an executive producer on the adaptation, expanding his role beyond his performance on screen.

The cast combines British and French performers, reflecting the story’s movement between the two countries. Civil plays Darnay while Mack takes the role of Lucie, with additional cast members including Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Yannick Renier, Fehinti Balogun and Roxane Duran.

The four-part adaptation revisits a literary landmark

Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities in 1859, and the novel has been adapted repeatedly for film and television. The new MGM+ version condenses the story into four episodes while emphasizing the relationships connecting Carton, Darnay and Lucie.

The series was created and written by Daniel West, with Richard Clark directing. Simon Meyers serves as producer, while Harington, West, Polly Williams, Léo Becker and other members of the production team are credited as executive producers.

Time Out also reported the trailer release and described the production as a new four-part interpretation of Dickens’ story.

While the source material is widely familiar, the current series is not simply presenting itself as a literary reenactment. The official synopsis and Harington’s comments place greater emphasis on the emotional collision among the three central characters and the relevance of their choices within a society under strain.

Why this adaptation is different from earlier versions

The novel has appeared on screen in several major forms, including a 1935 feature film and later television adaptations. MGM+’s version enters a television environment in which literary properties are increasingly being developed as limited series rather than condensed into two-hour films.

Four episodes give the production additional room to explore supporting relationships and political context while still maintaining a defined beginning and end.

The use of both British and French actors is also notable. Harington said the production embraced the bilingual nature of the material, an approach that potentially gives the Paris portions of the story a different texture from adaptations that treated the novel primarily as an English-language period drama.

What is confirmed ahead of the September premiere

MGM+ has confirmed that A Tale of Two Cities will begin streaming September 6. The project consists of four episodes, with subsequent installments expected to follow the service’s weekly release structure.

The trailer establishes the central plot but does not reveal how closely every major event will follow Dickens’ novel. The production has also avoided disclosing significant late-story developments in its promotional materials.

That restraint gives the adaptation room to work for two audiences at once: viewers who know the novel’s outcome and those encountering Carton, Darnay and Lucie for the first time.

With its August 12 trailer, MGM+ is positioning the series as both a recognizable literary adaptation and a star-driven historical drama. Harington’s Sydney Carton stands at the center of that strategy when A Tale of Two Cities premieres September 6.