‘Rats’ Witcher Spinoff Now in Pre-Production with New Showrunner

No comments

It was only a few days ago we first revealed that there would be a new live-action spinoff of Netflix’s The Witcher centering around the infamous group of misfits called The Rats. The main show, which currently stars Henry Cavill, Anya Chalotra and Freya Allan, will feature the Rats in Season 3 and Season 4, but between those seasons, this new spinoff is expected to be released.

After publishing the original post, we found out a few more details on the production.


Working title of the spinoff

rats art
The Rats by Gellihana-art

After we posted the original information, we managed to poke around in our sources and found out that the new project has a simple working title: Rats.

This, though, is likely subject to change. Going by simple marketing logic, we’d expect Netflix to add The Witcher to the title as it would advertise better.

Again, we don’t know whether this is an origin story for the gang or whether it will feature Freya Allan as Ciri as well. Allan is currently busy filming the new entry in the Planet of the Apes franchise, so it’s hard to say whether she’ll appear in Rats or not.


Showrunner of Rats

yen rience

Additionally, we were informed that the showrunner behind Rats is a Witcher writing room veteran Haily Hall, who has been on the main series since day one. Lauren Hissrich is still expected to be invloved, but as executive producer. Just like in Blood Origin, where the showrunner is Declan de Barra.

She wrote the episodes Rare Species (106), which adapted Andrzej Sapkowski’s short story The Bounds of Reason, Turn Your Back (205), which had the fiery encounter between Rience, Yennefer and Jaskier, and the third episode of the upcoming Season 3.

Hall has also been an executive producer for The Witcher and will likely write episodes for Season 4 and Season 5.


New location: South Africa

south african landscape

Lastly, we know that the new spinoff is now in pre-production in a surprising location. What’s on Netflix shared that Rats will be filmed in South Africa and has several crew members of The Witcher involved.

South Africa is both a surprise and not a surprise for The Witcher. It’s surprising that Rats will move on from Longcross Studios in the very available location-wise and rather inexpensive England.

At the same time, South Africa and particularly Cape Town is a very formidable hub of major productions, having accommodated such projects as Mad Max: Fury Road, Black Sails, Warrior, One Piece and many more.

We currently don’t have any filming dates for Rats, but we’d expect the bulk of filming to happen in the first half of 2023.


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.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.