By The first live-action spinoff of The Witcher is just over two months away now and soon Netflix will continue promoting The Witcher: Blood Origin starring Michelle Yeoh, Sophia Brown and Laurence O’Fuarain. Until that time comes, we have more news to share.
A new member of the Wild Hunt
We have learned that English actor James Boyland (DCI Banks, Coronation Street) will be appearing in The Witcher: Blood Origin as a rider of the Wild Hunt under the command of Jacob Collins-Levy‘s Eredin Breacc Glas.
While we don’t know the character’s name that Boyland portrays, it’s important to note that Imerith, Caranthir, Nithral and Ge’els are all creations of CD Projekt RED for The Witcher III: Wild Hunt and therefore cannot be featured in the Netflix series. So Boyland cannot be playing one of them, but rather someone with an original name created for the show.
Another little tidbit we know about this casting is that Boyland participated in the reshoots for Blood Origin earlier this year, directed by The Witcher Season 1 alum Alex Garcia Lopez.
More Wild Hunt members in The Witcher: Blood Origin
This now makes three members of the Wild Hunt in the Netflix version of The Continent that we know of. Firstly, Eredin, of course, then Boyland’s character and also Voleth Meir, who was the main antagonist of The Witcher Season 2.
Naturally, whoever she is, Voleth Meir cannot be her real name as that’s a demonic nickname that was given to her, which from Hen Linge translates to Deathless Mother. We’ll undoubtedly see her backstory in Blood Origin this December. Showrunner of The Witcher Lauren Hissrich teased this way back when Season 2 was released:
As she explained in a behind-the-scenes video for Season 2: “What we end up doing at the end is that we learn that Voleth Meir is actually not just a demon, but she is a dark elf, she’s part of The Wild Hunt. And the entire season she’s wanted to go back home.”
READ MORE: Witcher Lore: Explaining Voleth Meir and her connection to the Wild Hunt
The Wild Hunt is an extremely popular and intriguing topic for the existing Witcher fans thanks to the games, so it’s a little strange why the marketing department of Netflix doesn’t take advantage of that existing interest and doesn’t utilize the Wild Hunt to its fullest potential during the promotion of Blood Origin. Perhaps, we’ll see more of them in the coming weeks leading to the series’ release.
Season 3 of The Witcher is in post-production for a Summer 2023 release. The live-action prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin has been set a Christmas 2022 release. Stay tuned to Redanian Intelligence and do pop into our Discord server to join in on The Witcher conversation.
