Your Christmas may be a bit bloody this year, if you choose to spend it watching The Witcher: Blood Origin.
The four-part special event drops on Netflix on Sunday, December 25, and the streaming service has released a teaser offering a look at characters including Scían (Michelle Yeoh), Éile (Sophia Brown), and Fjall (Laurence O’Fuarain). “All beginnings,” Scían says. “All ends.”
The video, which you can watch above, also shows the world of the Witcher prequel, its fighting, and blood — and, of course, who could forget about the monsters? Listen closely near the end.
Blood Origin is set in an elven world 1200 years before the world of The Witcher. It tells a story lost to time — one of seven outcasts who unite against an unstoppable power that took everything from them. Their blood quest giving rise to a prototype Witcher in a conflict that brings about the “conjunction of the spheres,” when the worlds of monsters, men, and elves merged to become one.
The series also stars Minnie Driver (Seanchaí), Mirren Mack (Merwyn), Lenny Henry (Balor), Jacob Collins Levy (Eredin), Lizzie Annis (Zacaré), Huw Novelli (Callan “Brother Death”), Francesca Mills (Meldof), Amy Murray (Fenrik), Nathaniel Curtis (Brían), Zach Wyatt (Syndril), Dylan Moran (Uthrok One-Nut), and Joey Batey (Jaskier).
Creator Declan de Barra serves as showrunner and executive produces with Lauren Hissrich, Matt O’Toole, Tomek Baginski and Jarek Sawko (Platige Films), and Jason Brown and Sean Daniel (Hivemind Content). Sarah O’Gorman and Vicky Jewson are directors.
“As a lifelong fan of fantasy, I am beyond excited to tell the story The Witcher: Blood Origin,” de Barra said in a statement when the series was announced in July 2020.
“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? 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.”
The Witcher: Blood Origin, Four Part Special Event Premiere, Sunday, December 25, Netflix
