Star Trek: Discovery’s Michelle Yeoh has joined the cast, but what else do we know about The Witcher prequel?
Set over a millennium before the adventures of Geralt of Rivia, prequel series The Witcher: Blood Origin is set to take us back to a pivotal time in the history of the Continent. Announced by Netflix in July 2020, the live-action series will explore the origins of Witchers and the ancient Elven civilisation before it fell. Star Trek: Discovery’s Michelle Yeoh has already signed up to head up the cast, while The Witcher showrunner Lauren S Hissrich has teamed up with season 1 writer Declan de Barra to shepherd the spin-off to the screen. That a second series in the Witcher universe was greenlit so soon after the first series aired in December 2019 is an indication of how serious Netflix is about the franchise – and hopes are high it’ll result in more memorable stories based in the vast world of author Andrzej Sapkowski. So with The Witcher: Blood Origin set to begin production in August 2021, here’s everything we know so far (including cast and character details) about the hotly anticipated prequel series. There is currently no The Witcher: Blood Origin release date – and don’t expect one any time soon. The Witcher season 2 only wrapped its epic shoot in April 2021, ahead of its December 2021 debut, and the production process on the prequel series is likely to be just as long. We do know that, as of October 31 2020, the writing process was well underway, with showrunner Declan de Barra saying that “all the writers are off to outline or script”. And by March 2021, de Barra was busy showing off (redacted) pre-production drafts of The Witcher: Blood Origin scripts. Now Deadline is saying the show is set to go before the cameras in August. So, after what we’re guessing will be a lengthy shoot, followed by all the usual VFX work, we’d be surprised if we see the six episodes of The Witcher: Blood Origin on Netflix before 2023. It’s still early days, but there have already been some announcements about The Witcher: Blood Origin cast: With early rumors about Aquaman star Jason Momoa taking a starring role now unlikely to come to fruition, the biggest name currently attached to The Witcher: Blood Origin is Star Trek: Discovery and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Michelle Yeoh. Her involvement in the show was announced in early July 2021, and she’ll be playing Scían, the last of a tribe of Elven nomads. The character description reveals that she is, “the very last of her nomadic tribe of sword-elves. No one can come close to her artistry with the blade, and no one carries as much loss within their heart. When a chance presents itself to retrieve a stolen sacred sword, taken from her fallen tribe by nefarious means, she launches herself into a deadly quest that will change the outcome of the Continent.
