We got our first look at Henry Cavill as roguish monster hunter Geralt of Rivia when the first images from Netflix's adaptation of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski's books The Witcher arrived earlier this month. Cavill and some of the cast and crew from the series arrived at Comic-Con on Friday to further pitch the show to viewers, and brought the teaser with them.
Standing alone from the video games also based on the books, the show will still explore a similar world, one in which humans learned to harness magic from elves before turning around and effectively slaughtering many of them and unleashing terrible monsters upon themselves and everyone else.
"I would call it an addition to the books," show boss Lauren S. Hissrich told the Con crowd in Hall H. "We honour the books but we got to give the characters a little more breathing room. What’s great about The Witcher is that it’s so much more than a fantasy. Really it's a story about a family."
Cavill says he was a fan even before he lobbied to take the lead role. "I’m a big gamer. I’ve played the games a lot,” he said. "There was something about Gerald that struck a chord with me. He’s not your average hero. He’s a hard exterior, real-world type person and at the same time, deep down, he’s a real hero."
And he's also been committed to doing a lot of his own stunts (clearly working with Tom Cruise on Mission: Impossible – Fallout). "It’s very important for me that you know it’s Geralt and it’s not some guy doing Geralt stuff but it’s me in there,” Cavill told the Hall H crowd before cueing up a clip of Geralt cutting through a throng of armored soldiers in a throne room.
The cast also includes the likes of Anya Cholatra, Freya Allan and MyAnna Buring. So far, Netflix is only saying that the show is coming soon.