The Witcher has become Netflix's new hit show and the topic of recent discussions, including how the show came out the same weekend as Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. Some viewers were worried about how that would impact the release of the show, but the showrunners were not concerned with the shared release date at all because the holiday season release dates would allow viewers tons of time to watch both.
The Witcher is the new series from Netflix following the journey of Geralt of Rivia and his exploits. It is based on the books of the same name written by the Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The series lands in the Fantasy genre, and Star Wars falls in the Science Fiction genre. These genres are closely related and the release of the movie at the same time as the show could have impacted the show negatively, being from such closely related genres.
Looking back, fans can see that the release date did allow viewers a chance to watch both, with Rise of Skywalker bringing in $33.7 million on the opening weekend and $450.8 million overall so far, and The Witcher being listed by Netflix as one of its most popular shows of 2019, a stunning feat with it premiering so late in the year.
According to one of the showrunners from The Witcher, Lauren S. Hissirich, in an interview with Simon Applebaum, they were not worried about competing with Star Wars at all. Hissirich said, "You know the other big thing that happens around the holidays that people have now come to love and look forward to is big movies premiering," Hissrich said. "Obviously, we dropped the same night as Star Wars came out, and that was a question too, but the truth is that I've watched both. I watched Star Wars and then obviously I sat down with my family and watched The Witcher as well. There's room enough for a lot of entertainment over the holidays, and I think that's one of the things that we really wanted to grab onto."
Hissrich believes that fans won't choose one or the other since the show and the movie came out during the holiday season. She stated that she had seen people on Twitter posting that they were on their sixth or seventh rewatch of The Witcher series because of its holiday season premiere date. It would seem that viewers can't get enough of Geralt of Rivia.
With season 2 of The Witcher confirmed, it would seem that the platform does know what it is doing when releasing shows, and fans can be on the lookout for that season when the date is announced.
The Witcher is streaming exclusively on Netflix.
Source: Tomorrow Will Be Televised