Executive producer Lauren Hissrich talks about novelist Andrzej Sapkowski's involvement with the Netflix prequel series.
Netflix is continually growing its Witcher Universe on the streaming service. There have already been two seasons of the mainline series with a third in the works, an animated movie about Vesemir, and on Christmas, there is a prequel series about the creation of the first Witcher.
While many know of Geralt and his world because of the Witcher games–primarily CD Projekt Red’s Witcher 3–its origin comes from the mind of Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski and his various Witcher Saga novels. But how involved was the novelist with the upcoming series Witcher: Blood Origin, which arrives on December 25?
According to executive producer Lauren Hissrich, he was hands off and happy to give the reins over to the creative team. “We are so lucky,” Hissrich told GameSpot. “Working with Andrzej has been amazing because he is very clear with us. He wrote the books. He’s a novelist, and had he wanted to write a TV show he would have written a TV show. So he has given us the creative freedom to kind of take his stories and express them in sort of a new format that he himself could not would not. So that part’s been incredible because he does get all the scripts.
“I know he watches the episodes. I know he likes the episodes, but he actually doesn’t want to find himself in the middle of production. He had this insane analogy about going and buying groceries and making a soup, and he was like ‘I don’t want to do any of that work. I just want to enjoy the soup.’ So that’s what he does with our shows, which I think is pretty incredible. He’s very supportive.”
Witcher: Blood Origin arrives on Netflix on December 25. The four-part series takes place more than 1,000 years before the events of The Witcher series, and Blood Origin leads to the creation of the very first Witcher. The show stars Laurence O’Fuarain, Sophia Brown, Zach Wyatt, Michelle Yeoh, and Nathaniel Curtis. It features Francesca Mills as a warrior with her very own warhammer, which now sits in her bedroom. Joey Batey will return to the series as the beloved songster Jaskier.
The series is written and produced by Hissirch and Declan De Barra, both of whom worked on The Witcher as showrunner and writer, respectively.
In addition to the new series and Witcher Season 3 on the horizon, a remake of the first Witcher game is being made in Unreal Engine 5, and it will be open world.
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