Netflix has established itself as the streaming service that releases all episodes of a new season of TV at once. That’s been the way back to their first original series like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. They invented the binge model, which has had a lot of influence.
That said, there have been exceptions. For instance, Netflix released the most recent season of Stranger Things in two chunks: the first seven episodes came out in May of 2022 while the final two followed in July. That was done in part because those last two episodes needed a lot of special effects work, but it paid dividends: it created anticipation for the ending and got people talking in the interim, helping to turn Stranger Things 4 into a huge success.
Might Netflix do the same thing with some of its other high-profile series? What about The Witcher, for instance? The fantasy show based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s has been in the press a lot lately, both because Netflix just released a dumpster fire of a spinoff and because producers are replacing star Henry Cavill starting in season 4.
We have “eight-ish months” until The Witcher season 3 premieres on Netflix
So season 3 is the last season of the show with Cavill in the lead role of taciturn monster hunter Geralt of Rivia. Might Netflix want to milk that by dividing the season into two chunks?
“We haven’t discussed that yet, but at this point I think what we see happening across all sort of streamers, I wouldn’t rule it out,” showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told Collider. “I do think that, obviously, we don’t put anything out that we’re not incredibly proud of. So that dictates our entire launch date. And I think it’ll be interesting. Again, we have a way still a very long time, eight-ish months or so until Witcher Season 3 comes out. So God willing, we get it all out at the same time. But who knows, we’ll see what happens.”
Hissrich also hints at the release date here. She gave this interview at the very end of 2022, and says that they have “eight-ish months or so” to go until The Witcher season 3 comes out. That means we can expect it around August or September.
…or they could release a couple episodes earlier and then finish up work on the rest while hype builds. It worked for Stranger Things, is all I’m saying…
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