The Witcher Showrunner Cluelessly Teases Another Spinoff, No One Cares
It seems that you can do everything with The Witcher franchise provided you have the blessing of the author of the original books.
In a long interview with Polish Gazeta ahead of the December 25 release of the series spinoff The Witcher: Blood Origin, the show's executive producer Lauren Hissrich has said that Andrzej Sapkowski gave her a lot of creative freedom. She has also said that Sapkowski doesn't mind the team building their own stories based on the source material.
"When we talked with Andrzej Sapkowski about our ideas, he stressed that it is different with his books than with The Lord of the Rings. He doesn't think about the depicted world and events in the same way as Tolkien. He doesn't create a map of that world in his head, he doesn't think about what he didn't describe in the novels," she said adding that the author "gave her a lot of creative freedom and liberty."
According to Hissrich, the only request that Sapkowski had was for the show to remain faithful to the lore and premise of his books.
"If he didn't describe something himself, he let us build our own stories," The Witcher executive producer said in her conversation with Gazeta.
It's ultimately up to The Witcher fans to decide if they like this approach, but one thing is for sure – there could be a lot of prequels, sequels, and spinoffs in the future. The possibilities are endless, as Hissrich even mentioned that she was considering spinoffs before the first season even came out. It seems that the show's writers have limitless imagination.
"There are so many interesting threads in the books that we wanted to show and develop, but we already lacked time for them in the series," Hissrich said, adding that this was when she went to her bosses and pitched her spinoff idea.
Hissrich proposed the idea of shooting prequels, sequels, or spinoffs to fill the gaps between seasons of The Witcher, giving fans something to look forward to during the breaks. She suggested that these could be used to tell stories that they couldn't fit into the main series, but her boss was hesitant. "Let's perhaps check first if anyone will watch the show," the boss reportedly said, wanting to make sure the series would be successful.
The first season of the show was a hit, and Lauren Hissrich and her team were thrilled that their effort in developing the Witcher universe paid off. The idea Lauren came up with turned out to be fantastic.
However, it's still unknown how fans will react to The Witcher: Blood Origin since some believe a prequel without any of the original series' signature characters is doomed to fail. They argue that it's Geralt of Rivia battling scary monsters that really makes the series successful.