‘Daredevil’ and ‘The West Wing’ writer is developing Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’

By Brad Jones December 11, 2017

witcher

In May, Netflix announced plans to adapt The Witcher, a series of books by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. Now, it’s been confirmed that the task of bringing the novels to the streaming service will fall to Lauren Schmidt Hissrich.

Hissrich has a longstanding relationship with Netflix, having served as an executive producer on both Daredevil and The Defenders. She also received writing credits for episodes of those two shows, as well as Power, Private Practice, and The West Wing, the series that helped her start her career in writing for television.

Related Videos

Not much is known about plans for Netflix’s take on The Witcher, save for the fact that it has been given a multiple-series order. Hissrich is set to serve as both an executive producer and the showrunner, according to Variety.

The Witcher is best known to audiences outside of Europe as a series of hit role-playing games developed by CD Projekt Red. However, these titles are set after the series of novels and don’t serve as a direct adaptation of Sapkowski’s work.

Indeed, the author has expressed some disdain for CD Projekt Red’s output, as critically acclaimed as it has proven to be. Sapkowski made no secret of his opinion of both the titles themselves – and the medium of video games as a whole – in an interview with Waypoint published earlier this year.

Still, the Netflix series is set to serve as something of a collaboration between the talent that made both the books and the games so compelling for fantasy fans. Sapkowski will serve as a creative consultant, while the director of the computer-generated intros for the CD Projekt Red adaptations, Tomasz Baginski, will direct at least one episode in each season.

It’s difficult to imagine just how Netflix’s The Witcher will play out — the success of Game of Thrones has proven that there’s an audience out there for epic fantasy, but The Witcher has a much greater emphasis on monsters from the outset than the early seasons of HBO’s hit series did. It remains to be seen whether the masses will catch on, but fans of the books and the games alike have plenty of reason to be excited.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Entertainment

Everything leaving Netflix in April 2023

The cast of New Girl.

Everything must come to an end, and that includes some of your favorite movies and TV shows on streaming services. Netflix is not immune to losing content, even if it more than makes up for it with originals like Shadow and Bone, You, and That '90s Show.

In April 2023, Netflix will be losing beloved sitcoms like New Girl and The IT Crowd as well as modern classics like The Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks, Jude Law, a pre-Bond Daniel Craig, and Paul Newman (who was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting performance), and the comic book adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which has an all-star cast featuring Michael Cera, Mary Elisabeth Winstead, Chris Evans, Aubrey Plaza, Succession's Kieran Culkin, Brie Larson (who sings a cover of Metric's Black Sheep), and many, many others. Don't fret as there are plenty of movies and tv shows coming to Netflix in April.
April 3:
What Lies Below
April 7:
Hush
April 9:
New Girl: Seasons 1-7
April 11:
Married at First Sight: Season 10
April 12:
The Baker and the Beauty: Season 1
April 18:
Cuckoo: Seasons 1-5
April 20:
The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show: Seasons 1-4
April 23:
We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks
April 24:
Bill Nye: Science Guy
April 25:
The IT Crowd: Series 1-5
April 27:
Señora Acero: Seasons 1-5
April 28:
Ash vs. Evil Dead: Seasons 1-3
April 30:
Den of Thieves

Entertainment

Everything coming to Netflix in April 2023

A group of strange children look at something in season 2 of Sweet Tooth.

After all these years, Netflix continues to be the premier destination for streaming content. With recent hit shows like Wednesday, You, and Shadow and Bone, plus blockbuster movies like The Gray Man and the Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front, Netflix still dominates the streaming landscape like no other.

That domination is likely to continue with Netflix's April 2023 programming schedule, which includes the debut of the Steven Yeun/Ali Wong original series Beef, the return of the sci-fi comic book adaptation Sweet Tooth, and the arrival of Better Call Saul's sixth and final season. There's a lot for everyone, so we've highlighted our selections in bold below.
April 1
28 Days

Entertainment

5 shocking revelations from the Netflix docuseries Waco: American Apocalypse

David Koresh smiling in a black and white photo shown in Waco: American Apocalypse.

On February 28, 1993, the U.S. government attempted to enter the Mount Carmel Center ranch housing members of the Branch Davidian religious cult. They were executing a search warrant for the alleged possession of a stockpile of illegal weapons, including ones members had allegedly modified for automatic firing capabilities. They were also seeking out the leader David Koresh in hopes of a peaceful surrender. But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents did not expect the gunfight that would ensue.

The 51-day standoff that marked one of the largest such conflicts in the country's history, and the tragic end to the story, is chronicled in Waco: American Apocalypse. The three-part Netflix docuseries features never-before-seen material and interviews from law enforcement, ATF agents, FBI snipers, journalists, and survivors.