I can't tell if this is going to be live action or animated. "Bring to life" makes it sound live action but Platige Image is a visual effects and CGI studio so I'm not sure. Could be cool either way tho.

Well, at least this makes more sense than the recent announcements that they're bringing back Roseanne and Will & Grace.

Neat! Netflix makes great stuff.

@bisonhero: I love Will & grace! D:

The Witcher is cool. I hope they do it right. Part of what makes the Witcher so notable is that its sensibilities feel very different from fantasy written by American or British authors, and I'd hate to see an adaptation lose that.

I dont have high hopes for this, it's easy to see Game of Thrones succeed and think "right we can do fantasy, this is good source material!" but a lot of The Witcher is all about monsters, dwarfs, elves etc. and that stuff could come off as being very cringy without a big budget. It's Netflix so it is doable but it depends on how much they're willing to invest/risk.

Also casting for Geralt is crucial.

Ugh, please no CGI monsters. I want practical effects.

this will probably be middling to bad, just like the witcher 3! (i jest?)

Fuck yes, I am so 100% here for this. I guess it's time to finish The Witcher 3 and finally read the books.

This has the potential to be good. I got into Game of Thrones while playing Witcher 3, and I thought Witcher could make a decent show. You can have episodes focus on specific contracts, or multiple episode arcs around more involved topics. I really hope this doesn't suck.

Hopefully this is batman in a GOT like universe as it should be.

@boonsong: I mean, the whole show is probably going to be CG.

Apparently Platige Image S.A. was already responsible for cutscenes in The Witcher games along with at least one of the directors working on this. Pair that with writing of The Witcher novels and this has a lot of potential if they do it right.

If this is at all representative of what we might see from this then sign me up:

The main thing for me would be getting the sword fighting choreography right, Geralt's fighting style is really pretty.

Yeah, that's cool. Also, worthy of another thread but I want to mention here too since I'm too lazy to make a thread about it right now, they're also making a Judge Dredd show.

@zeik: Alright, that restores some faith. I'm sure fans of the books and games would be into this if the show was of that quality or better but I wonder if it would appeal to the masses, which i'm guessing it would need to in order to keep going and justify the costs.

I bet nobody on the staff will even watch it.

I really hope they manage to capture the "feel" of the novels. The style and tone of the witcher stories are what makes them great. Without that I`m a bit afraid it will just turn into generic fantasy slog.

If it`s live action the Witcher novels don`t acutally feature that many giant battles, big magic effects, dragons etc. in comparison to a lot of fantasy so similarly to Game of Thrones it might actually be possible to make it on a somewhat reasonable TV series budget.

@bisonhero: and friends

I really dislike how he shit talks the games so much, yet is so eager to sing the praises of this Netflix series.

The part where he mentions 'staying true to the source material' comes across as so goddamn snide.

@timeleap: If you were unaware, he did not get the greatest of deals on those games (likely because not many outside of Poland knew/cared much about these Witcher novels until after the games started coming along). Presumably with the success of those games, and especially Witcher 3, this series is possible and also worth quite a bit more at the bargaining table.

Vinny totally will. He even read the books as I recall. Or at least some of them.

Tbf he's lucky Moorcock didn't sue him anyway.

I dunno. While there are a couple of pretty specific things that are similiar between Elric and Geralt it`s mostly superficial stuff and they are really different characters (from what I have gathered. I am not that familiar with Moorcocks work).

As for him not liking the Witcher games (I love both games and books by the way) I can kinda get it since they do veer pretty far from the books and they straight up retcon some pretty important stuff from the books (Witcher book spoilers: Geralt, Yennefer, and Regis`s deaths in particular) and do also just generally have a pretty different feel from the books. How vocal he is about his distaste for the games is a bit dickish though considering that he did sell them the rights and let them do what they did in the first place.

@jonny_anonymous: If it's going to be all CG, then I am at least interested. That could turn out really bad or awesome.

This already exist but in Polish ofc. Also Andrzej is great shit talker when it comes to cd projekt red so NO THANKS !

Ps. (i hope Adam Sandler plays Gerald and Rob Scheinder plays Roach cause Netflix.)

@mattimus_prime: I should point out that my examples are not cruel social media hoaxes.

There is a really old Witcher TV show or movie as I recall, and by all accounts it was pretty bad. There's no way in hell that's what this is.

Sounds great! Hope it leans more into the X-Files monster of the week stuff than the gray morality, everything sucks stuff.

Yep, I'm fully interested in how this turns out.

I wonder what type of episode/season order netflix has comitted to upfront. Even if they focus on the saga and don't adapt many of the short stories, it will still need 5 seasons (at 1 season per book) to tell the whole story.

Andrej Sapowski's involvement is something of a double-edged sword (silver or iron).

On the one hand: YAY! Original creator's involvement means a certain degree of tonal accuracy.

On the other: he thinks the videogames are nonsense BS, so if your only exposure is the videogame, prepare to be surprised.

As long as it doesn't focus on Geralt

Man I hope this is good. This is the first Netflix announcement I've actually been really excited about

A little worried about his pitch of it as a story about family and I am not sure about the people behind it, but I am excited to see where this goes. The short stories make a lot of sense in a TV format.

His criticisms are mostly just bullshit though, of the "games can't be art" variety. He didn't make money off the game (stupid on his part) and then also they became hugely popular and drove people to read his books but yet he doesn't want to give them credit. As far as that discussion goes, he seems like a bitter fool to me. Good writer, but a fool.

So I can just watch this instead of playing the game right? Save the 110 hours. I may as well just get the story this way and not deal with the clunky gameplay people complain about.

Hmm.. Could be interesting I guess. I really should start reading some more of the books, though the whole Sapkowski being kind of a douche has kind of put a downer on my enthusiasm to do so.

Please don't be live action, please..

Sometimes you have to divorce the author from the literature or media you want to enjoy. History is full of pretty shitty people responsible for amazing stories. This guy being kind of a dick about video games is pretty low on that list.

No, it's very unlikely this will touch on anything that happens in the games. This is based on the books that all take place before the first game.

wow that's cool, I'm looking forward to it.

I'm hoping this is more akin to The Last Wish where each episode is a short story focusing on one monster/contract.

Also, while I see Travis Fimmel being a great fit for Geralt casting, I feel like that dude may be soured on video game cinema after that Warcraft movie...

@zeik: That I agree with. I have always been able to set that aside.

I quite like the stories that I have read so definitely recommend them.

There's no possible way this can be good.

netflix makes great stuff. It's gonna be good

My point exactly.

This isn't STRICTLY true *cough*HEMLOCK GROVE*cough*

wait,isn't there an issue of plagiarism between The Witcher and The Elric series ?

Unicorn sex?

@rata gain: No. The stories are totally different. Both of them have "Name" of "Location" and grey hair and that's about it. Oh and they are both nicknamed White Wolf.