An ex-producer of The Witcher Netflix TV show, Beau DeMayo, has said that some writers of the series actually “actively disliked” the Witcher video games by CD Projekt Red and the Witcher books written by Andrzej Sapkowski.
DeMayo had recently taken part in a Q&A session on his Instagram page and was speaking about his new position as showrunner on Disney+’s X-Men ’97 series. DeMayo noted that when he was getting the team together for the project, he was adamant that those involved had to have a passion for the material, as that hadn’t always been the case in his prior work.
He said, “I’ve been on a show – namely Witcher – where some of the writers actively disliked the books and games (even actively mocking the source material). It’s a recipe for disaster and bad morale. Fandom as a litmus test checks egos and makes all the long nights worth it. You have to respect the work before you’re allowed to add to its legacy.”
DeMayo had been a co-producer on two episodes of the first season of The Witcher, as well as writing one of the stories. He then served as a writer on the second episode of season two. It isn’t certain exactly which writers were not interested in the source material, as DeMayo did not mention any names.
One of the series’ showrunners, Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, has previously stressed the essential nature of the source material in the books. She said, “We’re all big fans of the books. We’re all big fans of the video games as well, but this is solely based on the books, and that’s really where we drew our inspiration from – starting with the short stories.” Henry Cavill, who plays Geralt of Rivia in the show, has also previously stated his love for the video games.
