Henry Cavill To Glare At Monsters In THE WITCHER
Netflix announced a live-action adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher over a year ago. The casting of its central monster hunter, Geralt of Rivia, remained a hotly-debated mystery - until today’s announcement that Henry Cavill (recently moustachioed in Mission: Impossible - Fallout and partially computer-generated in Justice League) would don the armour.
The role marks a return to TV for Cavill, who first rose to prominence, pre-Man of Steel, in The Tudors (pictured above). The show will be run under the supervision of Daredevil and Defenders executive producer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, and directed by Alik Sakharov (Game of Thrones), Alex Garcia Lopez (Utopia), and Charlotte Brändström (Outlander). It’s unclear how Netflix’s and Cavill’s take on the character will look and feel, but the official synopsis reads as follows:
Geralt of Rivia, a solitary monster hunter, struggles to find his place in a world where people often prove more wicked than beasts. But when destiny hurtles him toward a powerful sorceress, and a young princess with a dangerous secret, the three must learn to navigate the increasingly volatile Continent together.
To many, the Witcher series will be best known as a trilogy of video games developed by CD Projekt Red, in which Geralt was voiced, somewhat iconically, by Doug Cockle. But it’s worth noting that Netflix’s show is an adaptation of Sapkowski's series of folklore-inspired novels, not the games; how much inspiration is drawn from CDPR’s version (and indeed, how much inspiration legally can be drawn) remains to be seen. Whether or not Cavill has any sexy bathtub scenes as Geralt also remains to be seen.
There’s no premiere date for the Netflix series yet; as a sizeable, likely effects-heavy production, it's likely to be a ways off. Whenever it does premiere, it’ll span eight episodes, though given Netflix's track record, it'll likely contain the narrative content of six or so.
