Rumors about a potential spinoff of The Night Agent have circulated on and off since the series made a splash with its March 2023 debut, landing on the streamer’s Top 10 Most Popular English-Language Series list.

Speculation that Netflix could scale up The Night Agent into a franchise with potential offshoots grew when series creator Shawn Ryan in 2024 moved from Sony Television Studios, which produces the political thriller drama, to Netflix with an overall deal as filming was wrapping on Season 2.

Then last summer, word started spreading that Netflix was exploring casting for a potential The Night Agent spinoff.

During an interview with Deadline about the upcoming third season of The Night Agent, which premieres Feb. 19, Ryan addressed the spinoff rumors.

“There’s been chatter,” he admitted, stressing that some of the speculation has been off.

“There was never any casting thing or anything, that was never happening,” Ryan said. “There’s nothing active. My focus is on Season 4 and getting that picked up. If and when that happens, maybe I’ll investigate.”

Ryan revealed how close The Night Agent has come to a spinoff.

“There was an idea that we bandied about after Season 2,” he said. “It wasn’t fully fleshed out. It wasn’t officially pitched or anything. There were some conversations but nothing came to that.”

Ryan went on to praise the streamer for not pressuring him into expanding the franchise.

“I really admire what Netflix does,” he said. “They don’t just say, Oh, something is successful, let’s just rush into a spinoff of some kind. They really care about the creative, they want to know that there’s a reason why a show should exist beyond the mothership. And that’s the challenge.”

Ryan, who received an Emmy nomination for his first series as a creator, FX’s The Shield, went on to address the prospects of a spinoff.

“I’m always working on new ideas. If the right idea comes up for a Night Agent spinoff, I’ll pitch it, and we’ll see if Sony and Netflix are interested in it,” he said. “But the most important thing to me — having the success that we’ve had with the first couple seasons of The Night Agent, and now Season 3 coming to premiere — is I want to make sure that I steward this show in the best possible way. I’ve always been proud about the way that The Shield started and ended, and that that exists in a form that still means something to people 20 some years later, and I want to make sure that The Night Agent feels like it has a proper beginning, middle and end in a way that can stand the test of time. That’s my hope. So spinoff, sure, maybe one day.”

Under his Netflix overall deal, Ryan is developing other projects, which he is not ready to discuss. They do not include an adaptation of The Method, the new thriller novel by Matthew Quirk on whose book, The Night Agent, Ryan’s Netflix series is based.

“That was sent to us, it’s a great book, and I hope it turns into something,” Ryan said. “Matthew and I have become very friendly, but I didn’t have the bandwidth at that point to do that justice, so I’m glad he found another developer, and I hope it does great. Matthew’s a fantastic, fantastic dude. Really appreciates the show, really appreciates what it’s done for his visibility as an author.”

Ryan, who co-developed S.W.A.T. and served as executive producer/showrunner on the CBS/Sony TV series, also is not involved in that series’ upcoming spinoff, S.W.A.T. Exiles, developed and exec produced by Jason Ning.

“I was invited to be a part of that but the details of my Netflix deal precluded that, which is fine,” he said. “I got to meet Jason, who’s running the show. And he’s probably better off without me lurking, even in name only, over his shadow. I know a lot of people who are working on the show, and for the sake of Shemar and the crew, I hope it does really well.”

Season 3 of The Night Agent drops Feb. 19 on Netflix.