Following its unexpectedly big success with The Witcher, Netflix announced in January 2020 that it was diving even deeper into the property with an anime film called Nightmare of the Wolf. Rather than following the adventures of Geralt, though, Nightmare of the Wolf will focus on his mentor and fellow School of the Wolf follower, Vesemir.
Netflix dropped a teaser during WitcherCon that didn't strike me as especially remarkable, but now we've got a full-blown trailer to watch and I have to admit that my interest in the show is a lot higher than it was. This is obviously only a thin slice of the whole thing, but it comes off as a more light-hearted take on the world of The Witcher than we've seen previously: Tragic tales are out, fast talk and wisecracks are in. And while the White Wolf is a silver fox, young, unscarred Vesemir is just five-alarm sexy from top to bottom. (I do find the uncanny similarity to Adam Jensen a little distracting, though.)
Speaking of unscarred, The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich said in the trailer breakdown below that she's excited to get a look at what the world of Witchers was like before their decline, which is what we see in the games and Henry Cavill-starring Netflix series.
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"In the live-action world, when we get there in season two, Kaer Morhen is almost a shell of its former self. There are so few Witchers, Witchers are dying out. It's a big story point for us in season two. And it actually excites me to see what the Witchers used to be, and what sort of a larger brotherhood would look like. It's so exciting for me to see all of these characters in this place at the same time."
Vesemir, ghouls, Kaer Morhen, bath tub: Not necessarily in that order. @LHissrich breaks down the newest teaser trailer for Nightmare of the Wolf, premiering August 23 on @netflix 🐺 pic.twitter.com/PBcVnjIRRxJuly 21, 2021
She also noted the very different approach to the lead characters: "In our show, Geralt is incredibly serious, about his job, about his purpose, about working to protect Ciri," she continued. "And yet we see his father figure, who was once a young—I'm going to say rapscallion, even though that makes me sound very old—and it makes me so excited to go back in and understand where Vesemir came from, and who he was before he started to lose everything that was important to him."
Yeah, I might actually watch this. The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf will debut on Netflix on August 23.
