Netflix only reveals its viewing data when they have a hit, such as the movies Bird Box, Murder Mystery, and The Irishman, but you can apparently add to that list The Witcher, their shockingly good new fantasy series starring Henry Cavill. The streaming giant is alleging record numbers for the first season, claiming that since dropping late last month it’s become their top ever show — bigger, it seems, than even House of Cards. And so they’re doubling down: According to Deadline, they’ve announced a feature-length anime movie, to be called Nightmare of the Wolf.
The show, based on a series of Polish novels, follows Cavill’s white-maned Geralt of Rivia, infamous within its fantasy realm as a most fearsome hunter of monsters. As per Deadline, the film will expand upon its home world, showing “a powerful new threat facing The Continent,” a.k.a. the name of the landmass on which the show is set.
The news comes after Netflix revealed on Tuesday that 76 million households watched the first season’s eight episodes; another batch has already been ordered. If that number seems ludicrously high, then keep in mind there’s proof of the world having Witcher fever: A song from the show, entitled “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher,” has ballooned into a viral hit — so much so that, as per Entertainment Weekly, it was made available on music streaming platforms early, ahead of the release of the show’s soundtrack, which is due on January 24. For those whose 2020 predictions included “show with a character named Yennefer of Vengerberg will become a hit,” then congrats!
(Via Deadline)
