The Witcher Netflix series is getting an animated movie tie-in before season 2

Update: We now have confirmation that The Witcher is getting its own anime film called The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf. NXonNetflix confirmed the rumors on Twitter, announcing that the live-action show's creators Lauren Hissrich and Beau DeMayo will work on it, and that Studio Mir (the team behind Legend of Korra) will animate. 

Original story: The Witcher Netflix series may not be returning until 2021, but it is reportedly getting an animated movie tie-in to help make the wait for The Witcher season 2 a lot less painful.

According to Redanian Intelligence – who has a solid track record when it comes to Witcher-related scoops – The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf will be: A) an animated film, and B) penned by Beau DeMayo – who wrote the third episode of season 1. This is backed up by an entry on the Writers Guild of America West site, confirming both the existence of Nightmare of the Wolf and that DeMayo wrote the screenplay.

In a recent interview with IGN Poland (translation via What’s On Netflix), producer Tomas Baginski also hinted at the existence of an animated production, saying: “I don’t want to give away too much here, but who knows if we won’t see The Witcher in this [animated] style. However these are things I would rather not talk about too much for now.”

Outside of that, not much is known about the upcoming Witcher movie either in terms of story or which characters will feature.

‘Nightmare of the Wolf’ isn’t an explicit reference to The Witcher books, though there are still plenty of untapped short stories from Andrzej Sapkowski that could be re-surfaced and used for one of Geralt’s adventures – or even from the wider world of The Continent.

Of course, there’s also the small matter of literal decades of the Witcher timeline being left tantalisingly blank. A film, animated or otherwise, would be the perfect opportunity to fill in those gaps to see what the monster hunter has been getting up to away from his time with Yennefer and Jaskier.

If the report rings true, it also shows a new Netflix approach for both The Witcher and potentially other franchises in the future. We’re no longer resorting to waiting between seasons – there is now scope for more risky ventures, including Nightmare of the Wolf.

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