As of right now, The Witcher: Blood Origin prequel series is set to debut at some point this year on Netflix. It had previously been rumored that the streaming service was eyeballing a launch somewhere around Christmas. Officially, the show is set to be a six-episode prequel to Netflix’s The Witcher taking place roughly 1,200 years in the past, but if a new report is accurate, the bad news is that might not actually be the case.
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According to Redanian Intelligence, between reshoots and editing, Netflix has actually cut down the number of total episodes of The Witcher: Blood Origin from six to four. The report claims that the first and last episodes have been largely untouched, but the middle four have been combined into two episodes total. The same report also claims that Joey Batey’s Jaskier will have an even bigger presence than previously reported in the prequel series.
For now, Netflix has not actually confirmed any of this. In previous announcements, the company specifically noted the fact that it was intended to be six episodes. The report starts that its source said that “the reshoots and edits were being made in an attempt to bring Blood Origin closer to the main series as well as polish and cut some of the material that was deemed to be weak.” Whether it actually turns out to be four — and why that is — remains to be seen. For now, officially, it’s six episodes and coming out in 2022.
“Set in an elven world 1200 years before the world of The Witcher, Blood Origin tells a story lost to time – one of seven outcasts who unite against an unstoppable power that took everything from them,” the official logline for The Witcher: Blood Origin from Netflix reads. “Their blood quest giving rise to a prototype Witcher in a conflict that brings about the ‘conjunction of the spheres,’ when the worlds of monsters, men, and elves merged to become one.”
The announced cast for the show includes Sophia Brown as Éile, Michelle Yeoh as Scían, Laurence O’Fuarain as Fjall, Mirren Mack as Merwyn, Lenny Henry as Balor, Jacob Collins-Levy as Eredin, Lizzie Annis as Zacaré, Huw Novelli as Callan “Brother Death,” Francesca Mills as Meldof, Amy Murray as Fenrik, Nathaniel Curtis as Brían, Zach Wyatt as Syndril, and Dylan Moran as Uthrok One-Nut.
Declan de Barra is the showrunner and executive producer for The Witcher: Blood Origin while The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich is an executive producer. The Witcher franchise creator and author Andrzej Sapkowski is a creative consultant on the series. According to the original announcement of the series, Jason Brown and Sean Daniel of Hivemind as well as Tomek Baginski and Jarek Sawko from Platige Films are also executive producers. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the upcoming limited prequel series right here.
What do you think about the latest report about The Witcher: Blood Origin? Would you prefer four episodes or six episodes? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop in order to talk about all things television and gaming!
