Netflix Sets ‘Witcher’ Prequel Miniseries ‘Blood Origin’

Netflix has announced the upcoming limited series The Witcher: Blood Origin. The six-part, live-action limited series will be a prequel to the hit Netflix series The Witcher, set a millennium earlier when a great happening formed the world as Geralt, Ciri and Yennifer know it.

Declan de Barra (producer/writer, Iron Fist, The Originals) will act as executive producer and showrunner and Lauren Schmidt Hissrich (The Umbrella Academy, Daredevil series) will act as executive producer. Author and creator of The Witcher Andrzej Sapkowski will serve as creative consultant on the series. Jason Brown and Sean Daniel from Hivemind and Tomek Baginski and Jarek Sawko from Platige Films will all serve as executive producers.

“As a lifelong fan of fantasy, I am beyond excited to tell the story The Witcher: Blood Origin. A question has been burning in my mind ever since I first read The Witcher books: What was the Elven world really like before the cataclysmic arrival of the humans?” said de Barra. “I’ve always been fascinated by the rise and fall of civilizations, how science, discovery and culture flourish right before that fall. How vast swathes of knowledge are lost forever in such a short time, often compounded by colonization and a rewriting of history. Leaving only fragments of a civilization’s true story behind. The Witcher: Blood Origin will tell the tale of the Elven civilization before its fall, and most importantly reveal the forgotten history of the very first Witcher.”

Set in an elven world 1200 years before the world of The Witcher, Blood Origin will tell a story lost to time — the origin of the very first Witcher, and the events that lead to the pivotal “conjunction of the spheres,” when the worlds of monsters, men, and elves merged to become one.

“I am so thrilled to collaborate with Declan and the Netflix team on The Witcher: Blood Origin,” said Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, who is showrunner on The Witcher. “It’s an exciting challenge to explore and expand The Witcher universe created by Andrzej Sapkowski, and we can’t wait to introduce fans to new characters and an original story that will enrich our magical, mythical world even more.”

Sapkowski added, “It is exciting that the world of Witcher — as planned in the very beginning — is expanding. I hope it will bring more fans to the world of my books.”

The Witcher: Blood Origin will shoot in the U.K.