The Witcher is one of the most exciting properties in fantasy fiction. Author Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels garnered a loyal following in the 90s in his native Poland, but the franchise really exploded when CD Projekt Red began adapting them as action RPGs. The high point was 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, one of the greatest video games ever released. This global success prompted Netflix to announce a live-action show, featuring Man of Steel star Henry Cavill as the titular Witcher Geralt of Rivia.
For those who haven’t been keeping up, they’ve previously described the series as so:
“When destiny hurtles [Geralt] toward a powerful sorceress, and a young princess with a dangerous secret, the three must learn to navigate the increasingly volatile continent together.”
We’ve already gotten a look at the titular hero in a brief video and some blurry set pictures, but today, Netflix has released the first poster and character shots for some of the main players, and they’re going to make fans very happy.
Honestly, I don’t have much to say other than “wow.” From the looks of these, those producing the show have paid attention to what worked in the games and translated it to the screen with only minor modifications. In fact, the poster looks as if it could even be a high-resolution shot from The Witcher 3 itself.
My only slight nitpick would be that Geralt is shown with one sword on his back, when everyone who’s played the games and read the books knows that Witchers carry two: steel for regular foes and silver for supernatural ones. I’m sure he’ll get his second one soon enough though.
Aside from Cavill’s Geralt, Anya Cholatra’s Yennefer and Freya Allen’s Ciri also look fantastic. Now that we’ve got these, let’s hope we get a full trailer for The Witcher very soon. Word is that Netflix is aiming for a release sometime between October and December 2019, so we imagine the first bit of footage will arrive this summer. Stay tuned.
