Pre-production starts on The Witcher prequel, former lead comments on her departure and other updates

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The much-awaited prequel of The Witcher series started pre-production earlier this month at Arborfield Studios near London. The Witcher: Blood Origin is set 1200 years before the happenings of the main series when the worlds of men, monsters, and elves converged in the Conjunction of the Spheres and the first witcher came to be. Declan de Barra is the showrunner of the project with Lauren Hissrich and Tomek Baginski among the producers.


So it begins..

Filming the series is set to start in August and continue until the end of November. The production will primarily take place in Arborfield Studios and possibly a few outdoor locations nearby. Canary Islands was one of the locations mentioned earlier, but that looks less likely now with the changed schedule.

Lead star Laurence O’Fuarain moved to Reading earlier this month and has since started training for the project. O’Fuarain will play Fjall, a warrior who carries a deep scar within. Fjall has been heavily speculated to be the man who would become the very first witcher.


Jodie Turner-Smith comments on her departure

Netflix is yet to announce the actress who will play the other main lead, Eile, after Jodie Turner-Smith left the project due to scheduling issues. Recently Turner-Smith said how the changed schedule made the decision for her despite her eagerness to work in the famous franchise in an interview with ET Canada.

“I think it’s not the first time in my life that I’m probably gonna gave to make a hard choice because of the way things are or choices kind of get made for me because of the way that the world is moving and my life is moving, but I was just so excited that I was even in that conversation with them and I’m really excited to find something else for us sometime in the future.”


How will the two directors divide six episodes

As we previously suggested, The Witcher: Blood Origin will likely have two directors: Sarah O’Gorman and Vicky Jewson, each directing three episodes. While we don’t know who will direct what, we do know that Assistant Directors Tom White and Sean Guest have updated their episodes on their IMDb profiles and this gives us a clue.

White will work on episodes 1, 4, 6 and Sean Guest will work on episodes 2, 3, 5. We expect the directors will work on the same set of episodes as well.

If we had to guess, Sarah O’Gorman being already somewhat of a Witcher veteran and having worked on Season 2, will probably take on the episode set that includes the premiere and the finale. But we’ll have to wait and see to know this for sure.

READ MORE: Blood Origin: Filming locations, director updates, and more about the Witcher prequel


More casting calls

There’s still plenty of time before filming and casting is continuing as well. Sophie Holland Casting recently put out a casting call for an actor of East Asian descent. Here’s the description of the role named Kaali:

Earlier casting calls were of Princess Merwyn, Character G (an assassin with restricted growth), Character Z (a conduit sorceress with cerebral palsy) and Fabbri (a deaf druidess).


We expect more casting announcements and other information on the series in the coming weeks. Meanwhile stay tuned to Redanian Intelligence for more Blood Origin updates.

1 comments on “Pre-production starts on The Witcher prequel, former lead comments on her departure and other updates”

  1. Nice, thanks for the updates RI. Any news of the Nightmare of the wolf? Or when the first trailer of the Witcher s2 will drop? Let’s hope they will be on comic con.

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