It’s a tale as old as time when it comes to the streaming giant: According to The Witcher original creator Andzej Sapkowski, Netflix was completely uninterested in hearing his opinions regarding their handling of his seminal work’s live-action adaptation.
The author provided this insight into his experience with Netflix’s The Witcher production team while speaking to Austrian video game news outlet Cereal Killerz during the recently held 2023 entry of the annual Vienna Comic Con.
Following discussions on his writing history, creative process, and what lies in store for Geralt in the future, the outlet eventually raised the topic of the live-action series, asking Sapkowski,“When you visited Netflix on the set for The Witcher series, did you give them any feedback?”
To this question, the author first responded by beaming over how “Well, the set was TREMENDOUS, you know, tremendous. Everything, everything,” before returning to the outlet’s main question and admitting that while he had thoughts on the series’ direction, they were ultimately discarded by its production team.
“Maybe I gave them some ideas, but they never listened to me,” he laughed to Cereal Killerz. “It’s normal. ‘Who’s this?’ ‘He’s a writer, he’s nobody.’”
Notably, this is not the first time the storied author has offered such a lukewarm reception to Netflix’s ongoing mess of a television adaptation.
Asked by a fan for his thoughts on the live-action The Witcher series during a recent appearance at the 2023 Taipei International Book Exhibition, Sapkowski unenthusiastically affirmed, “I’ve seen better, I’ve seen worse.”
Further, Sapkowski is far from the only creator to have publicly claimed that Netflix ignored their input when adapting their work.
Speaking to his involvement in Netflix’s ill-fated television disaster during a 2019 interview with Japanese entertainment news outlet Otaquest, Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichirō Watanabe detailed, “I read the initial concept and provided my opinions, but I’m not sure if they will be reflected in the final product.”
Netflix’s disregarding of Watanabe’s feedback would later be confirmed by series lead John Cho, who during an interview with IGN admitted, “We did not communicate [with Watanabe]”.
Likewise, in explaining his exit from the production team for Netflix’s upcoming live-action adaptation of his and Bryan Konietzo’s popular animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino affirmed, “In a joint announcement for the series, Netflix said that it was committed to honoring our vision for this retelling and to supporting us on creating the series. And we expressed how excited we were for the opportunity to be at the helm. Unfortunately, things did not go as we had hoped.”
His creative partner, Bryan Konietzko, likewise told fans, “When Netflix brought me on board to run this series alongside Mike two years ago, they made a very public promise to support our vision. Unfortunately, there was no follow-through on that promise. Though I got to work with some great individuals, both on Netflix’s side and on our own small development team, the general handling of the project created what I felt was a negative and unsupportive environment.”
“To be clear, this was not a simple matter of us not getting our way,” he added. “Mike and I are collaborative people; we did not need all of the ideas to come from us. As long as we felt those ideas were in line with the spirit and integrity of Avatar, we would have happily embraced them. However, we ultimately came to the belief that we would not be able to meaningfully guide the direction of the series.”
And yet, despite Netflix’s ongoing disrespect of the very creators they source their creative ideas from, their best performing and most widely-enjoyed show in recent memory was One Piece, whose production team broke this trend by actively including series mangaka Eiichiro Oda in every step of its development.
Imagine that.
As of writing, the fourth season of Netflix’s The Witcher has yet to receive a release date or even begin production.