Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more!
The Witcher: Anime drops in August; Season 2 set for December; and Jaskier first look at Witchercon
The wait is finally over for high-fantasy fans who’ve been patiently biding for word on when Netflix will premiere The Witcher’s second season. Crowning a fun behind-the-scenes panel chat during today’s Witchercon, the streamer revealed that Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer will be heading back to Netflix before the year is out — and just in time for the holidays.
Season 2 of Geralt’s monster-hunting travels is coming our way on Dec. 17, almost two years to the day from the original debut of the series’ breakout first season, which fell on Dec. 19 of 2019. Netflix teased the new batch of episodes with a striking poster that taps into a key theme of the upcoming season: the teaming up of Ciri (Freya Allan) and Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), who finally join forces in the wake of Ciri’s prophetic mandate to seek out Cavill's Witcher as Season 1 neared its catastrophic end.
Check it out:
Witchercon proved just the occasion for Netflix to show off more first looks from Season 2 — including a totally new take on Jaskier (Joey Batey), the typically mild-mannered minstrel who insinuated himself with Geralt in the first season as a persistent source of pain (and comic relief) in their ongoing love-hate bromance.
Caught smack in the middle of his best Jack White rave-up impersonation in a leather maroon trenchcoat, say hello to a totally frameable concert portrait of Jaskier 2.0:
Jaskier’s new, shagged-out look is “a bit more rock and roll,” Batey joked while setting up the senak peek during Friday’s Witchercon cast panel. Not to be left out, thoguh, Allan and cast newcomer Paul Bullion, who'll portray Lambert in Season 2, also got a first-look image — albeit a way less jovial one than Jaskier's — that finds the duo dutifully working on combat training in the bleak, wintry outdoors:
Tossing a coin to the show’s more serious side, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich weighed in to reveal that she’s especially proud of Season 2 scenes that feature series newcomer Vesemir (Kim Bodnia) — not only because of Bodina’s casting, but because mentorship and family end up being key themes as the season gets deeper into its story.
“I would have to say Vesemir is the one I’m most looking forward to our audience meeting,” said Hissrich, confessing that picking a favorite is “like asking me my favorite child.”
“…In a season that is about [Geralt] becoming a father to Ciri, it felt so important” for Geralt to also have a mentoring father figure in Vesemir, she added. As a seasoned, older Witcher from the original Andrzej Sapkowski stories on which the show (and the CD Projekt RED video game series) is based, Vesemir serves as a sort of wizened senior figure to the Witchers of Kaer Morhen, though Netflix is still quiet about how the series will pick up his role from Sapkowski’s written canon.
Allan teased that Ciri likely won’t come storming into Season 2 at full power — which isn’t a big surprise, considering she just began discovering her own potential as Season 1 came to a close. “‘[W]hatever she possesses inside her is a very scary thing for her, so she’s not keen to start confronting it,” said Allan. Eventually, though, she “realizes it’s far more beneficial to control whatever this is that she has” than to run from it. “You’re definitely gonna get to see a lot of Ciri’s potential” as the new season unfolds, she concluded.
If December still feels like too long a wait, there're more Witcher-y goodies on tap coming much sooner over the summer. In a nod at settting up Vesemir's backstory, Netflix revealed a release date poster (above) for the previously-announced The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, an anime feature film that "tells the story of Vesemir, a swashbuckling young witcher who escaped a life of poverty to slay monsters for coin," as Netflix teases. Watch for Nightmare of the Wolf to premiere at Netflix on Aug. 23.
Witchercon rolls along today with a two-part event that’s set to debut a second stream of behind-the-scenes looks and commentary from both the Netflix series and the creators behind CD Projekt RED’s hit video games. The late-day stream starts at 9 p.m. ET; visit the Witchercon landing page to tune in to your preferred online platform.
As for Season 2 of the series itself, mark your calendars for Dec. 17, 2021, when The Witcher comes galloping back to Netflix.
