According to some new Barside Buzz, The Witcher spin-off series The Rats is worse than even previous spin-off Blood Origin. If so, that’s a bold claim and another nail in the coffin of this franchise and Fantasy adaptations on TV.
The information comes from Redanian Intelligence who are very, very reliable for fantasy news, especially The Witcher.
‘Over the last two years we’ve learned a few things about the production of The Rats from different sources. Unfortunately, they remained largely tight-lipped on details, but they let a few phrases slip like “behind the scenes was a disaster”, “worse than Blood Origin” and “everything went wrong” on this show.’
‘Earlier in 2023, after filming prematurely wrapped, we heard that people in the upper echelons of Netflix saw some early footage and decided not continue with the show, hence why it only filmed for two months and not six as initially intended.’
‘The fate of this project is still uncertain. On one hand we know that instead of a full miniseries, the existing footage was being retrofitted into a feature-length special called The Rats: A Witcher’s Tale. Post-production work on that was still ongoing right until filming for The Witcher Season 4 began.’
‘On the other hand, we also heard that Netflix were considering to chop the footage up and serve it as flashbacks in The Witcher Season 4. That could explain why post-production for the Rats special didn’t continue past Spring 2024.’
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Who knows what will happen in the end. Audiences walked away in droves after the adaptation went farther and farther from the (quite adaptable actually) source material. The show also lost it’s lead actor in Henry Cavill and had to recast with Liam Hemsworth for the upcoming Season 4.
Chances are, Season 4 bombs hard, Rats becomes a flashback episode at best and Netflix doesn’t tough the franchise again until a potential reboot in years to come.
Netflix wrecked The Witcher, Amazon wrecked Rings of Power and Amazon cancelled the semi-successful and getting better The Wheel of Time. The Golden Age of Fantasy TV died before it even began.
Will we see this as a series or even a mini/series, or will they use a few scenes for flashbacks and ditch the rest? What do you think about The Rats being worse than Blood Origin, an admittedly shockingly bad show?
