We’ve met the cast, we’ve seen a moody first trailer that won a lot of people over, and we’ve argued over whether or not Henry Cavill’s Geralt should have two swords on him or not – but we still don’t actually know when Netflix’s live-action adaptation of The Witcher is set to hit the streaming service.
We’d previously heard vague promises that the show is expected to drop towards the end of 2019. A new report seemed to narrow down that window considerably, with the very end of October/start of November being touted as the expected air date.
Sadly, as much as I’d love to be able to confirm that The Witcher is coming at the end of October or the start of November, it seems that these reports were entirely premature – likely falsified entirely.
Witcher fansite Rendanian Intelligence first reported that Giovanni Eūgene Altamarquéz, who claimed to be an Executive Producer at Netflix, recently updated his Twitter bio. While that might not sound especially thrilling to you or I at first glance, the account specifically mentioned October as the month The Witcher would arrive on Netflix.
Altamarquéz later clarified his new bio in a thread on Twitter, writing:
The Witcher major filming has wrapped for Season 1 plus all major filming for the series has been completed. But, this doesn’t necessarily mean every bit of filming is complete because the series is undergoing some reshoots after the recasting of a major character. From here, the show enters post-production where it will hopefully be finished in time for its late 2019 release at the end of Oct 2019. One likely release date for the episodes of #TheWitcher is Friday, November 1.
Bizarrely, Altamarquéz’s tweets were subsequently deleted and his account was suspended, with Twitter citing a “violation of policies.” In an odd twist, it seems that “Altamarquéz” might not have actually been who he claimed to be.
Fansite TheWitcher.TV reached out to Netflix and discovered that the streaming service is currently “investigating” who exactly this person is – it looks like he has no ties whatsoever to Netflix, and his comments about reshoots and a late October/early November air date seem to be completely bogus.
Netflix went on to confirm to the fansite that shooting has officially wrapped for the show, and there’s no additional filming going on right now. Given that we still don’t have an official release date from Netflix, the streaming service said that any dates discussed at this time are pure speculation.
Who exactly this Altamarquéz is remains to be seen. The “Executive Producer” has a Linkedin (that claims he’s been at Netflix for over five years) and Medium account (which also “revealed” the release date) that have yet to be suspended in the way his Twitter account was.
Whether or not there is actually a real Altamarquéz at Netflix and the Twitter account was a fake, or if Altamarquéz simply has no ties to Netflix at all remains to be seen, but Netflix’s comments seem to suggest the latter.
I’ll attempt to reach out to Netflix for further clarification on this bizarre situation and update if I hear back. For now, I guess we just have to sit tight and wait for official news of a release date for The Witcher.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via story@unilad.com
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.