The Witcher is coming to Netflix! The Witcher Saga began as a series of eight novels and story collections before finding a new home in a sequence of highly acclaimed video games. The books’ author, Andrzej Sapkowski, is set to be a creative consultant on the series, along with executive producers Jason Brown and Sean Daniel. Tomasz Bagiński, an animator who previously worked on the games with studio Platige Image, and who was set to direct a film based on The Witcher saga, is now onboard as a producer, and will also direct “at least one episode of each season.”
The Witcher tells the story of Geralt Of Rivia, who is a member of a secretive group of professional monster-hunters. He finds himself caring for a young girl named Ciri, a magician who is forced to escape her home. The games, particularly The Witcher 3, invite players into a sandbox offering hundreds of sidequests as well as developing Geralt into a complex and endlessly-memable character. The game has found such success that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk included a copy of The Witcher 2 during a gift exchange with former U.S. President Barack Obama.
Sapkowski expressed his enthusiasm for the new adaptation, saying, “I’m thrilled that Netflix will be doing an adaptation of my stories, staying true to the source material and the themes that I have spent over thirty years writing. I’m excited about our efforts together, as well as the team assembled to shepherd these characters to life.”
And director Bagiński joined one of his partners at Platige Image in saying, “There is a moral and intellectual depth in these books which goes beyond genre. It is a story about today and today’s challenges, hidden under a fantasy cover. It is a story about us, about the monster and hero inside of all our hearts.”
You can watch Bagiński’s Oscar-nominated short, “The Cathedral”, below, and let us know who you’d cast for Geralt and Ciri in the comments!
