Many witch movies burned at the stake — critically speaking. We’re not talking about the Harry Potter types, but more along the lines of Nicolas Cage’s Season of the Witch, Jeremy Renner’s Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, Jeff BridgesSeventh Son, and (most recently) Vin Diesel’s The Last Witch Hunter. Perhaps The Witcher will be able to turn the beat around.


The Sean Daniel Company and Platige Films announced today that they’re teaming up to bring the novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski to life as a feature film. SDC had a hand in the Mummy franchise, the TV series The Expanse, and the remake of Ben-Hur, while Platige is developing an animated movie based on the Ryszard Kapuściński book Another Day of Life.

witcher-3-wild-hunt
Image via CD Projekt Red

Sapkowski’s stories have already been transformed into a popular video game franchise centering on Geralt, a nomadic monster hunter called a “Witcher” who is gifted with unnatural abilities. The character will also feature in the film, which is said to be pull themes from “The Witcher" and “Lesser Evil,” two short stories in Sapkowski’s The Last Wish collection.

Based on the press release, the plan is for the film to be an introduction to “the Witcher’s world” as the first of a series. There also seems to be plans for a TV adaptation, as the announcement further states that screenwriter Thania St. John (Chicago Fire) “is working on the script as well as on its film and television continuation.”

Tomasz Bagiński, whose animated short film Katedra was nominated for an Oscar, is set as the director. Jarosław Sawko, Piotr Sikora, Sean Daniel, and Jason Brown will produce. No specific release date has been set, but Platige announced The Witcher will debut in 2017.


It was only a matter of time before the world of Geralt made it to the silver screen. Aside from the popularity of Sapkowski’s works, the game series has been praised for its cinematic qualities. Watch the opening cinematic for The Witcher 3 below.

the-witcher-3
Image via CD Projekt