Henry Cavill and the rest of the cast and crew for Netflix’s The Witcher will resume shooting in the Czech Republic and other locations later this summer after the start of production on the second season of the hit series was suspended due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
According to this week’s Production Weekly, The Witcher season 2 will resume shooting from August 3. It will be shot at London’s Arborfield Studios, and on location in the Isle of Skye (Scotland), Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.
Details about which locations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia may be used for filming have not yet been revealed.
Shooting is expected to initially resume in London studio before moving to locations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia later in the summer or early autumn.
Production on The Witcher season 2 originally began in London in February, but was quickly derailed due to the coronavirus pandemic. While originally scheduled to hit the Netflix streaming platform in late 2020, the release has now been moved to 2021.
New cast member Kristofer Hivju, who starred as Tormund Giantsbane in HBO’s Game of Thrones, was diagnosed with COVID-19 during the pandemic, but has since fully recovered.
Season 1 of The Witcher, based on the Polish series of novels by Andrzej Sapkowski and popular video games that followed, was mostly shot in Hungary, with some location work also done in Slovakia. Czech locations will make their debut in season 2.
In The Witcher, Henry Cavill stars as the titular character, Geralt of Rivia, a monster slayer who travels medieval lands in search of bounties. Anya Chalotra and Freya Allan co-star as witches and love interests Yennefer and Ciri, respectively.
While the first season jumped back and forth through multiple timelines, the second season will be presented in a more linear fashion, the showrunners have announced.
Released at the end of 2019, the first season of The Witcher was one of Netflix’s most-watched and best-reviewed original series of last year.
The Witcher is among a number of high-profile TV shows shooting in the Czech Republic to be delayed by the global coronavirus pandemic.
Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Solider began shooting outside of Prague in March, but was quickly disbanded due to the spread of coronavirus in Europe.
Local shoots on the second season of Carnival Row and the epic fantasy series Wheel of Time were also both interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic; filming on both are also expected to resume later this summer.
Film production in the Czech Republic has been able to resume since mid-May given the low incidence of COVID-19 cases in the country.
One Response