Andrzej Sapkowski, author of The Witcher series of books, is full of praise for the upcoming Netflix adaptation of his work. Hype for the show has been steadily building all year, with the release of the latest trailer hitting all the right marks for fans. And having seen that preview, Sapkowski is singing its praises and has high hopes for the series’ quality.
Speaking at the Lucca Comics & Games Festival, Sapkowski opened up about his feelings on the show, saying:
“Yesterday I witnessed for the first time the screening of the trailer of The Witcher series, together with the fans. I didn’t even see the pilot episode because I like being surprised. But I can say one thing: if the series will be as beautiful as the trailer, we will have a masterpiece.”
However, despite knowing as much as we do about what the finished product will be like, Sapkowski has been involved in shaping the show’s narrative, explaining:
“I worked as a consultant for the series, in the initial phase of writing the story, and I was very well paid to do it. But I was not involved in the actual production, in the casting or in the shooting, and when I see the images from the set, or the trailer, I am always amazed. Everyone asks me how I imagine Geralt and the others, or the setting of the books, even compared to what appears in the series or in video games. The truth is that I don’t visualize the characters and the scenes I write, I don’t have an image of their own in mind. All I do is put one letter after another until I have filled a page. I have no idea how they should appear on screen.”
It’s nice that Sapkowski is due a payday from The Witcher. Despite the franchise achieving global success on the back of CD Projekt Red’s amazing RPG series (with the show taking obvious visual cues from The Witcher III: Wild Hunt), Sapkowski didn’t make a lot of money from them. This isn’t because of any financial trickery on the developer’s part, simply that Sapkowski didn’t believe the games would be a success and decided he’d prefer a lump sum for the rights rather than a percentage of any profits.
Recently, he was given some more compensation by CD Projekt Red, but it’s safe to say that him finally making some real money out of his creation may have encouraged him to view this adaptation more kindly. But hey, he’s right. It does look beautiful and may well be a masterpiece. We’ll find out for sure on December 20th, when season 1 of The Witcher lands on Netflix.
