You’d travel far and wide before locating a fantasy saga as rich in detail as Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher.
It’s got all the genre’s hallmarks, too – swords and dragons and ancient prophecies. So it was with great excitement that we brought you the news that Netflix and Henry Cavill were spearheading a live-action Witcher series to be released in late 2019.
Cavill will soon pick up arms as Geralt of Rivia, and while CD Projekt Red’s video game franchise helped propel The Witcher into the mainstream, there’s a real possibility that this upcoming Netflix series will introduce Geralt and Co. to a worldwide audience – this is Netflix we’re talking about, after all; there aren’t many streaming platforms that hold a candle to the company’s global reach.
Production is currently underway on The Witcher, and while there have been one or two image dumps to whet our appetite, series showrunner Lauren Hissrich recently assured fans that Netflix’s adaptation will be a “very adult show.”
I’ve been rewatching dailies and my kids aren’t allowed to look at the screen anymore after one of them snuck around and saw something they shouldn’t have seen and it scared him. It’s a very adult show. I will add it was important to me that any violence or sex drives the story and is not there just for shock value. I think audiences are really savvy and know when we’re doing stuff to just shock them versus do stuff that really drives the story.
Hissrich spoke to Entertainment Weekly in the lead-up to San Diego Comic-Con, and laughed off suggestions that The Witcher would feature a “PG-13” vibe in order to cater to a wider audience. Frankly, the Powers That Be wouldn’t do Geralt justice if they released a watered-down version of his formative adventures in the Northern Kingdoms, so it’s reassuring to know that Hissrich and her team are committed to a truly adult saga.
Look for The Witcher to premiere via Netflix later this year.
