We might not get ‘The Witcher’ Season 2 until 2021, but a prequel is already greenlit
“The Witcher” stars Henry Cavill as monster hunter and supernatural creature slayer, Geralt of Rivia. Image: Courtesy of Netflix via AFP Relaxnews
As the “The Witcher” Season 2 prepares to restart production, Netflix has just announced live-action prequel “The Witcher: Blood Origin”.
“The Witcher: Blood Origin” is joining December 2019 hit “The Witcher” and proposed animated feature “The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf” at Netflix.
As a third Netflix treatment of Andrzej Sapkowski’s story collection about a superhumanly enhanced monster hunter in medieval eastern Europe, “The Witcher: Blood Origin” takes place 1,200 years before “The Witcher” itself.
It will shed light on how “the worlds of monsters, men and elves merged into one, and the first Witcher came to be.”
Pitched as a six-part limited series, “Blood Origin” is not expected to generate a direct sequel. Instead, it would tie into the wider universe of “The Witcher”.
In Season 1 of “The Witcher”, an incident that led monsters, humans and elves to inhabit the same world was known as the Conjunction of the Spheres.
That “The Witcher: Blood Origin” is to explore both the Conjunction of the Spheres and the origin story of the first Witcher — a monster hunter with superhuman abilities — is an intriguing prospect.
This is because the two events are generally regarded by franchise characters as having taken place seven centuries apart.
Yet showrunner Declan de Barra positions “Blood Origin” as “the forgotten history of the very first Witcher,” giving the show leeway to deviate from the saga’s previously revealed chronology of events if necessary.
De Barra was a supervising producer on “The Witcher”, wrote the fourth episode, and contributed four songs to the show’s soundtrack.
Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, the creator, showrunner and an executive producer on “The Witcher”, is on board as an executive producer on both “The Witcher: Blood Origin” and “The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf”. Sapkowksi remains involved as a consultant.
His “Witcher” saga debuted in 1993 (2007 for the first English-language edition) and was adapted into a video game series, with Netflix’s “The Witcher” lead actor Henry Cavill using the games as one of his character references.
Sales of both books and games rocketed after the Netflix series released. RGA
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