Anna Daniels
As mentioned, Cavill had something of an advantage going into The Witcher through his extensive knowledge of the source material. As most already know, Netflix’s The Witcher is based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s books rather than on the video game series’ story, so Cavill knew he had to brush up on the narrative behind the narrative of the games he played through. Now, if the thought of having to read a ton of text before the December 20 premiere of The Witcher in order to enjoy and understand the series has suddenly sent a shiver down your spine, take a deep breath — Hissrich has assured that the show will satisfy existing Witcher fans without pushing away people who are unfamiliar with the property. No matter if you’ve played the Witcher games or have never picked one up before, read everything Sapkowski has written or haven’t gotten around to doing so, it seems you’ll be pleased with Netflix’s The Witcher.
“The show has to appeal to and surprise existing fans. That’s our core enthusiastic bait,” Hissrich began. “Part of what I’ve loved in working on the show is getting on, at first, Twitter and then Instagram and even finally I got on Reddit recently [and] really sort of delving into the fandom and seeing what they like. What I tried to do is take the stories that they loved and they were familiar with, but to tell them in a different way, which is part of the structural changes that you’ll actually see in the show. We’re sort of [saying is], ‘Let’s basically present this story in slightly different dressing.'”
She continued, noting that the series’ creative team kept in mind not to “alienate people who’ve never heard of The Witcher before,” and made careful decisions to ensure that those new to the property can enjoy the upcoming series just as much as longtime fans.
“You want to make sure that there’s things for them to fall in love with, too,” shared Hissrich. “For instance, in the first episode, we only meet Geralt and Ciri. I found that in trying to explain what a witcher was and to learn all of these new names and all of these new places and things that sound unfamiliar and trying to wrap your head around the politics of the world, what I want to do is hold off introducing Yennefer because I wanted to make sure I was giving it in bite sized-pieces. And then what that allowed us to do, in episode two, [was] to let both Ciri and Geralt take a slight backseat and really delve into Yennefer and to make sure we understand where she’s coming from.”
In Hissrich’s words, The Witcher is “really a mix of both — trying to make sure that the story is engaging for fans, but also really exciting for people who’ve never heard of the project.”
No doubt that Henry Cavill’s handsome mug will also pull viewers into the show, the first eight episodes of which hit Netflix on December 20.
Written by: Looper
