‘The Witcher’ Movie In The Works For 2017
A movie adaptation ofThe Witcheris on the way and it’s easy to see why. Originally a well-regarded series of novels and stories by Polish authorAndrzej Sapkowski, which were then adapted into a trilogy of critically acclaimed video games, this series has a huge scope, complex characters, and the kind of lore so fascinating you want to explore every nook and cranny to learn more. The world ofThe Witcheris full of monsters and action and violence and intrigue and sex and grizzled warriors trudging through harsh landscapes. There’s a movie here.
However, a proper adaptation of the game series would be several hours of the main character, Geralt of Rivia, avoiding the main plot so he can assist random people with their problems and aimlessly wander the landscape. It wouldn’t be aWitchermovie unless there’s about 30 minutes of herb collecting, followed by 45 minutes of potion-making. The fans demand it.
More information about theWitchermovie can be found after the jump.
The movie adaptation ofThe Witcherwill be spearheaded by producerSean Daniel, best known fortheMummyseriesand its variousScorpion King-related spin-offs, who will work alongside Poland’s own Platige Films. This won’t be the first time Platige Films has had a hand in theWitcherseries – they’re responsible for a few trailers and cinematic sequences forThe Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. Like this one:
Tomek Baginski, a Polish filmmaker best known for his Oscar-nominated animated shortThe Cathedral, will make his feature debut withThe Witcher.Thania St. John, whose credits include episodes ofGrimm,Eureka, andRoswellis writing the screenplay. Despite having an experienced director of animation at the helm and a the backing of a studio known for creating animation forThe Witcher, all signs point to this movie being live-action.The official press release doesn’t actually specify. Anyway, here’sThe Cathedral, in case you want a taste of Baginski’s chops:
TheWitcherseries follows Geralt, a white-haired, yellow-eyed warrior who has dedicated his life to hunting down monsters and supernatural threats. However, he doesn’t do it out of the goodness of his own heart – he’s out to make a living and getting paid for his services is part of his code. The war-ravaged land he calls home feels like the halfway point between Middle-Earth and Westeros – it’s full of monsters and creatures and other high fantasy elements, but everyone who lives there is either poor and miserable or wealthy and scheming for more power.
The film is expected to be the first in a series (of course) and will “be based on themes from the short stories ‘The Witcher’ and ‘Lesser Evil’ from ‘The Last Wish’ collection.” In other words, it’ll probably be its own thing rather than a straightforward adaptation, but that’s fine. The video games kinda did their own thing with the stories they were based on, too.
No exact release date is specified, but the press release says 2017. So it’s going to be a while yet.
We’ll leave you with a reminder thatThe Witcherwas previously made into a film in 2001 and that nobody liked it very much. However, it was a messy, truncated version of an entire TV series that was set to actually premiere a year later. At the very least, whatever Baginski, St. John and Platige cook up will look better than this thing:
