Netflix has announced a prequel miniseries for ‘The Witcher’ entitled ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’.  It will depict the elven civilization 1,200 years before the events of ‘The Witcher’, before its fall and chronicle the “long history” of the first Witcher.

This will be a six-part live-action miniseries that will film in the UK, which is starting to allow film and television productions to resume or begin.  No casting has been announced, but it is highly unlikely that any of the stars of ‘The Witcher’– including Henry Cavill (Geralt), Freya Allan (Ciri), Anya Chalotra (Yennefer), and Joey Batey (Jaskier)– will appear due to the time setting.

Set in an elven world — 1200 years before the world of “The Witcher” — “Blood Origin” will tell a story lost to time and the events that lead to the pivotal “conjunction of the spheres,” when the worlds of monsters, men, and elves merged to become one.

Declan de Barra, who wrote episode 4, “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials,” of the regular series, will serve as showrunner and executive producer of ‘Blood Origin’.  Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, the showrunner of ‘The Witcher’, will also act as an executive producer.

In addition to this mini, and the main series, Netflix also has in the works an anime movie, ‘The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf’.

‘The Witcher’ was released in December of last year and in just a matter of weeks racked up enough streams to rank as Netflix’s second-most-watched original TV series of 2020, falling just behind ‘Stranger Things’.  Netflix also touted it as its most-watched first season ever.

Is ‘The Witcher’s fandom strong enough to support multiple spinoffs?  We’ll have to wait and see.

‘The Witcher’ S2 began filming before COVID-19 shutdowns in May.  Cast member Kristofer Hivju (who is playing Nivellen, although you may know him better as Tormund Giantsbane on ‘Game of Thrones’) tested positive.  Pre-production resumed earlier this month and filming is scheduled to start back up on August 17.

No release date has been given for ‘The Witcher’ Season 2 (beyond sometime in 2021), ‘The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf’, or ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’.  Check back for updates!

 

Source: Variety