‘The Witcher’ Showrunner Defends Netflix Series Changes, Says Books And Video Games “Still Exist” So “Everyone Can Have Their Version”
Though many long-time The Witcher fans are not happy with the Netflix adaptation’s regular deviation from its source material, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich believes there is room for her take on Geralt of Rivia’s story to co-exist alongside both Andrej Sapkowski’s original novels and CD Projekt Red’s video game outings.
Pressed for her thoughts on the series’ backlash during a recent interview given to Dexerto‘s Daisy Phillipson on the eve of The Witcher‘s Season 4 premiere, Schmidt Hissirch acknowledged fans’ disappointment with her changes and explained that, in her view, they were unfortunately necessary to adapt the original novels into a completely different storytelling medium:
“You have book fans, you have video game fans, and then you have fans that knew nothing about this world until the show existed. And the truth is we can’t choose one audience. We have to remember what we are doing, which is a television show.”
“It is different than any other genre in any other form that you could tell this story, and we have to make the choices for that. We have eight hours every season to tell these stories, and we’re never going to be able to tell everything from the books.
“I also think that there have to be changes that you make for adaptation just to make this story keep going forward. Season 1’s the perfect example. Obviously we leaned into the two books of short stories, but you can’t just tell unrelated adventures in a season of television.”
“You have to start to weave them together. You have to understand how these adventures lead our characters to be where they are meant to be. And so we had to start crafting… at that point it was connective tissue.
“We also have the privilege of knowing when we’re ending. Netflix picked up Season 4 and Season 5 at the same time, so we also had to write ourselves to that particular ending. So again, you make choices.”
To this end, Schmidt Hissirch ultimately attempted to calm the flames – but though noble in her goal, she went about it perhaps the worst possible way, arguing that critics should be less reactive to the Netflix series’ changes because the original novels and video games are still widely accessible, in doing so ignoring the reality that poor adaptations can be a detriment to both a given work’s reputation and its future regard:
“One of the things that I’ve talked a lot to the author about and a lot to fans about is that the books still exist.
“No one is taking the books away. No one is taking the video games away. I think everyone can have their version of The Witcher and this is this version.”
Interestingly, while the showrunner frames her apparent discussion with The Witcher‘s original creator, the aforementioned Andrzej Sapkowski, as a sort of ‘a point of agreement between two creatives’, the author’s previous public reflection on the series suggest this may have been more ‘Schmidt Hissrich dismissing his concerns.
Asked during the 2023 Vienna Comic Con if he had given the Netflix team any feedback while visiting the set in 2023 set visit, Sapkowski confirmed that while he had offered his thoughts on the series’ production, none of it seemed to have been taken to heart.
“Maybe I gave them some ideas, but they never listened to me,” he laughed. “It’s normal. ‘Who’s this?’ ‘He’s a writer, he’s nobody.'”
