We may only be one season deep into Netflix’s smash hit The Witcher series, but showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich already has a grand plan in place for the future and beyond.
Despite not knowing (but surely silently confident, given the resulting acclaim) how the show would be received before release earlier this month, Hissrich approached the project as a long term investment from the very beginning. Speaking to UK magazine SFX back in November, she revealed that she’s already planned out a whopping seven seasons for Geralt of Rivia’s adventures. Responding to questions regarding whether she had already mapped out a second season, the writer beamed “Oh hell, yeah!” adding, “Second season? I’ve done it for seven seasons!”
In hindsight, we know, of course, that Hissrich had little reason to doubt that Netflix bosses would give a second season the go-ahead, but prior to the series’ debut, she said:
“We don’t have a second season yet – God willing we will – but right now it’s just about, ‘How do you set up stories that really capture audiences for years at a time? The worst thing we could do is put all of our energies just into season one, and not be thinking about where these characters can grow to.”
Hissrich has certainly delivered on her own goals with The Witcher‘s inaugural season, having ended the new series’ initial eight-episode run with plenty of questions while delivering hours of excellent world-building in the process. Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri may not have shared the screen time that many had perhaps hoped, but with potentially six more seasons of fantasy still to come, one can hardly blame her for wanting to ease viewers into Andrzej Sapkowski’s mysterious and magical world.
The Witcher season 1 is available to watch now on Netflix, with season 2 currently planned to air sometime in 2021.