Henry Cavill leads cast of Netflix’s The Witcher

It has been announced by Netflix that Henry Cavill will be leading the cast of their adaptation of The Witcher, playing the lead character, Geralt of Rivia.

Executive producer and showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has described the character of Geralt as “stoic, circumspect, balanced, fierce, and as hiding a soft place in his heart that he’ll never reveal until the end and even then it will just be a hint.”

Based on the best-selling fantasy series, The Witcher is an epic tale of fate and family. Geralt of Rivia, a solitary monster hunter, struggles to find his place in a world where people often prove more wicked than beasts. But when destiny hurtles him toward a powerful sorceress, and a young princess with a dangerous secret, the three must learn to navigate the increasingly volatile Continent together.

The Witcher series for Netflix will be based on the stories and novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, of which there are eight, which themselves formulated the popular Witcher games franchise which has since spawned a comic book series and a tabletop game. The book series was previously adapted for television in Poland.

Henry Cavill currently stars in the critical and box office hit Mission Impossible – Fallout, which has earned over $649 million worldwide. He is a massive fan of Andrzej Sapkowski’s series of fantasy short stories and novels about the witcher Geralt of Rivia. Henry starred in the dual role of ‘Clark Kent / Superman,’ in Man of Steel, the highest-grossing Superman film to date, and in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League.

Schmidt Hissrich will serve as executive producer and showrunner for The Witcher. She’s known for her work (writing and co-executive producing) on The Defenders, Daredevil, and Power. Sean Daniel is set to executive produce under the Sean Daniel Company with his partner Jason Brown. Tomek Baginski and Jarek Sawko of Platige Image will executive produce as well.

Netflix is aiming to release the first season sometime in 2020. The series will be eight episodes long and will be shooting in Eastern Europe.

(Photo credit: Getty Images)