New Facts About Second Season of Netflix's Witcher
Tomasz Baginski gave another interview on The Witcher TV show. The producer told us something about the behind the scenes of the show, as well as the plans for the second season.
The upcoming premiere of The Witcher from Netflix makes the producers more and more talkative about the show. This can be seen in the case of Tomasz Baginski, who has been the protagonist of many interviews recently. One of them was conducted by Karol Paciorek from the Imponderabilia channel (in Polish), during which the animator had a lot to say about the show. He briefly mentioned the history of the project, starting with the first talks with Sapkowski around 2010, through Netflix's involvement and the start of the tiring (and apparently merciless for shoes) shooting at the beginning of November 2018, and ending with the current technical issues related to the platform itself. Baginski also mentioned the second season, and more specifically the planned moving of the "studio base" from Budapest. The film crew intends to stay more often in Eastern Europe, and may stay in Poland for a longer time.
The producer also mentioned physical props on the set of the show. Henry Cavill insisted on using real objects and people during the battle scenes, thus avoiding the green screen technique and the resulting swinging of the sword to "cut air". This is in line with the October assurances that the producers want to reduce the appearance of CGI on screen to a minimum. By the way, Baginski praised Cavill a lot in a recent conversation with ComicBook.com - the actor was supposed to "literally become Geralt", staying close to the set of the series and getting very involved in his role.
Baginski also had a lot of good things to say about Lauren S. Hissrich, the showrunner of the series. Right after her involvement in the creation of The Witcher, the producer was supposed to have a lot of "fantastic ideas" and she was the one tasked with "creative work". Her team of scriptwriters (including at least one ardent fan of Sapkowski's short stories) managed to adapt to screen something that, according to Baginski, still remains unique on the fantasy market. The Pole referred here to the specific tone of Geralt's book adventures, unlike the traditional, serious fantasy like Lord of the Rings or Game of the Thrones, but also not strictly comedy. The witcher's world is dark, but the author is constantly blinking at the reader, making the book much easier to read than the history of the Westeros battles. According to Baginski, Hissrich did a great job, although it required a lot of work (some scripts were rewritten twenty times).
That doesn't mean that Baginski sees the show as perfect. The team had to devote a lot of time to learning the world of The Witcher, and there were also quite unexpected challenges (for example, magic - the team had a problem with finding an appropriate reference in other cinematographic works). The need to create an entire first season without having a pilot episode first did not make things any easier for the producers. Eventually they are satisfied with the final result, but they realize that some things could be improved in the next season. They also don't want to ignore fans' opinions, including pre-premiere criticism. This is evidenced by Baginski's statement, who mentioned that in the first season many Nilfgaardans will die, so in the next season they may differ slightly "for example in appearance". The Pole clearly referred here to the controversy over the imperial armor, which is interesting because not long ago he defended the way it was presented.
Speaking of the second season, preparations for its production are already underway, although it is currently at the planning stage. The film crew already knows what the story will be, and the experience of working on the first episodes should make it easier to create new ones. However, it is all a matter of the future - for the time being we have to see how the first season of The Witcher turns out. We have already heard the voices of critics who had very good opinions of the show. Tomorrow, the first public screening will take place in Los Angeles, and on December 18, the series, together with its creators and actors, will visit the Witcher's homeland. Two days later we will be able to see for ourselves what Geralt's adventures with Netflix will have for us in store.
