With Mission Impossible: Fallout currently conquering the box office, Henry Cavill has found a second blockbuster role alongside playing Superman. Cavill is currently promoting Fallout, in which he plays CIA assassin August Walker, and was asked about other roles he would like to play. The answer was Geralt in the upcoming adaptation of The Witcher.
The Witcher is currently in development at Netflix, and Cavill made it clear that he would love to be involved. "The Witcher 3. I just replayed all the way through," he said, when asked by IGN about other projects he would like to be involved in. "Love that game. Really good game." Cavill was then asked specifically about playing the lead character of Geralt in Netflix's adaptation. "Absolutely," he said. "Yeah, that would be an amazing role."
The show was announced by Netflix in May, and is based on the eight-part novel series written by Andrzej Sapkowski, on which the games are also based. Sapkowski is set to work on the English language drama series as a creative consultant.
Showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich recently stated that the first season will consist of eight episodes, and that the show was likely to premiere in 2020. "We're moving quickly ahead with everything--like, my head is spinning around Exorcist-style, except with enthusiasm, not evil possession--but one thing is certain: quality comes before speed," she said.
A Polish TV series based on The Witcher aired in 2002, but that has been the only adaptation of the franchise for TV so far. A Witcher movie with some big-name talent behind it was was announced for 2017, but that never happened.
As for the Witcher game series, the newest instalment was 2015's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. No new projects in the series have been announced, and developer CD Projekt Red is now working on the much-anticipated Cyberpunk 2077.