Before Geralt’s grunts, there was Vesemir’s smirk. Netflix has released the first trailer for The Witcher prequel anime, Nightmare of the Wolf, which sees a young Vesemir (Theo James, Castlevania and Divergent series) tracking down a witch — as the tide begins to turn against him and his fellow monster hunters.
The animated series, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, tells the origin story of Vesemir, who will be played by Kim Bodnia in season two of The Witcher but is being voiced by James in this prequel. It’s all about a handsome, rogueish, and quite bearded monster hunter who escaped a life of poverty with the help of the mysterious Deglan (The Hobbit and Castlevania’s Graham McTavish), who claimed him through the Law of Surprise.
We see him taking contracts for various monsters, slashing and slaying as the day is long. But everything changes when he comes across a contract for a witch named Tetra (Sherlock’s Lara Pulver).
Here’s the synopsis: “The world of The Witcher expands in this anime origin story: Before Geralt, there was his mentor Vesemir — a swashbuckling young witcher who escaped a life of poverty to slay monsters for coin. But when a strange new monster begins terrorizing a politically fraught kingdom, Vesemir finds himself on a frightening adventure that forces him to confront the demons of his past.”
Nightmare of the Wolf — which also stars Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica) as Lady Zerbst — is run by The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and Beau DeMayo, along with co-executive producer Kwang Il Han and the famed Korean animation studio, Studio Mir. This is the first of two currently planned prequels for The Witcher — the other being a live-action limited series called The Witcher: Blood Origin, which is about the Continent’s first Witcher.
The live-action Blood Origin is currently readying production, and no expected release date has been announced. The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf debuts on Netflix on August 23, and season two of The Witcher arrives on December 17. And yes, there’s a tub in the animated series.
