The Witcher franchise is teasing even more spinoffs, following the release of the prequel miniseries The Witcher: Blood Origin, which was released over the Christmas holiday weekend. In a new interview, The Witcher: Blood Origin showrunner Declan De Barra talked about The Witcher creator and author Andrzej Sapkowski and the wealth of source material he’s created around the series, which can continue to fuel an entire franchise universe on the screen:
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“Sapkowski is the king of the closed ended story, the more we read of his books, the broader the tapestry of the world,” De Barra explained to RadioTiimes. He then teased, “So that’s the advantage of doing all these – they might be standalone pieces, but they paint another side to this world and expand it outward. That’s the fun part.”
So far, The Witcher has built its fanbase out of Sapkowski’s books, and the hit video games that were made from them. As a TV franchise, The Witcher has already debuted two hit seasons on Netflix. Spinoffs began with an anime prequel (The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf) in 2021; that film told the origin story of Vesemir (Theo James), the mentor of Geralt (Henry Cavill), the main (anti-)hero of The Witcher series. Blood Origin took the history of The Witchers back even further to its beginnings, showing how a ragtag group of warriors (many of them the last of their kind) came together to overthrow a ruthless empress and a rogue mage, and had to merge man and monster into a new hybrid being (Witchers) to win the war.
As De Barra says, these prequel projects are but mere drips in the overflowing bucket of stories from The Witcher universe. There are so many more opportunities to follow everything from the first of Éile (Sophia Brown) and Fjall’s (Laurence O’Fuarain) human/monster hybrid bloodline, to the formal formation of The Witchers, to the history of Cintra that led to Ciri’s (Freya Allan) creation, to a series focused on a younger Geralt, or one set long after his time, taking The Witcher story into a new era. Best yet, it can be done in any number of formats (TV series, movies, anime, etc.) to keep the series varied enough to feel fresh.
Netflix will likely need to get some exciting expansion ideas in production sooner before later, as The Witcher main series is headed for a bumpy turn in the road. Henry Cavill announced he’ll leave the series after the upcoming Season 3, with Liam Hemsworth taking over as Geralt after that. Fans have been in an uproar about the casting change, so getting The Witcher franchise any kind of attention beyond the main series is a good thing, right now.
The entire Witcher series is available to stream on Netflix.
