UPDATED: The Witcher: Blood Origin writer’s room assembles for the first time

17 comments

Earlier in July, Netflix announced the live-action witcher spinoff The Witcher: Blood Origin. Fans have been flying high in anticipation of news, as rumors have it that Netflix is eyeing Aquaman star Jason Momoa for the lead role and casting director Sophie Holland has begun working on the prequel.

Yesterday, The Witcher: Blood Origin showrunner Declan De Barra announced the first official day of work on the show, also introducing the new writer’s room.

Here, we have it: Nine writers, including De Barra will be responsible for penning the six episodes of The Witcher: Blood Origin. A mix of old-hands and new talent from a diverse background. We know all but one of them and will update this article once we find out the missing writer’s name. Take a look below, if you’re interested in their background and previous work.


Declan De Barra

Most of you will know Declan De Barra by now for writing episode four of season one of The Witcher and doing the vocals for The Song of the White Wolf. Previously, he has written an episode of Marvel’s Iron Fist and worked as co-producer on The Originals. Parallel to leading The Witcher: Blood Origin, he continues his work on The Witcher and was responsible for writing the first episode of the upcoming new season.


Kiersten Van Horn

Kiersten Van Horn is a producer and writer well known for shows such as Mistresses, Krypton, Berlin Station, and TNT’s sci-fi drama series Snowpiercer. Earlier in her career, she had acting gigs in various tv series.


Aaron Stewart-Ahn

Aaron Steward-Ahn is primarily known for his work on Mandy, featuring Nicolas Cage. Other than that, he has a versatile background with work experience as a director, producer and cinematographer of multiple video documentaries.


Alex Meenehan

Alex Meenehan credits include season six of Amazon’s police series Bosch as well as as Marvel’s upcoming Moon Knight, a new series also featuring The Witcher writer Beau De Mayo. Previously, she was an assistant writer on Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle.


Tania Lotia

Tania Lotia started her career as a staff writer on DC’s superhero-horror series Swamp Thing, which has not been renewed for a second season. She went on to write episode five of the much-anticipated second season of Amazon Prime’s Carnival Row, starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne.


Pooja Gupta

Pooja Gupta is a producer, writer and film director with professional television credits for Married at First Sight: The First Year, Tamra’s OC Wedding, and Mary Mary. She has several projects in development including co-writing a mini-series with Andrea Pallaoro.


Tasha Huo

Tasha Huo worked as a writer on the documentary Women in the Dirt: Landscape Architects Shaping Our World and a project called Black Belle, labelled as in development.


Troy Dangerfield

Troy Dangerfield worked as an assistant to the executive producer of ABC’s crime series Castle. He has also written and acted on a comedy movie called Tokens in 2017. On The Witcher: Blood Origin, he will be the writer’s assistant.

UPDATE: Jordan McCray and Matt McInnis

Thanks to a tipoff from our reader Jess we now know the name of the missing person from the original meeting: Jordan McCray (Committed) a young writer and student of geography. Earlier, in another meeting of the writers room, Matt McInnis (known for his work on Marvel shows such as Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage) was revealed as Co-Executive producer for Blood Origin.


The Witcher Blood Origin doesn’t have a release date yet. However, with the upcoming second season of the main show and the animated prequel film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf in the works, it likely won’t be out until 2022. As ever, we will keep you updated on all things witcher!

17 comments on “UPDATED: The Witcher: Blood Origin writer’s room assembles for the first time”

  1. 1) no Polish writer
    2) 5 women,
    3) races like rainbow, very hard to guess the key, ha?

    why would you need so many writers anyway? I understand that there is no ready script, but they had great source material for witcher season 1 and the somehow managed to ruin it, why is lauren also a producer there, she will be next Kathleen Kennedy with her stupid eels and armor she chose or brooklyn dryads

      1. eels are very far from fine, the general concept of magic is illogical, this crazy important trade off somehow magically disappeared by the end of the season – like with yen… because someone could not let a man be a hero – it was Vilgefortz I am not mistaken.

        the eels are just beyond stupidity, which monarchs would send their daughters knowing they may be wasted in such manner. Sapkowski made it much more consistent and simple – if you were bad for magic, they made your sterile in magic terms but as graduate you would still be someone important and well educated.

        Eels and full metal alchemist magic are really weak points in the show and it will only become more and more visible

      2. In show is clear that in Yennefer student times there was no one girl from rich family, so 60 years later she is so shocked when discover rich students pay tuition. Tissaia must know who pay tuition a who was buy by her like Yennefer.
        In later books is not so much magic, biggest visible problem will be explain how Ciri lost magic in desert.

      1. where do you see racism? there were people of color in GOT and I loved it, because it made a lot of sense and was extremely simple and coherent. Dryads were green by the way.
        And yes sometimes it does look like NY Brooklyn, very far from middle ages Europe – trivia for sunday fans, continent looks pretty much like Europe with 90 degrees turn

    1. Although your words are very harsh I understand the criticisms, the points cited by you were very bad … the armors of the terrible warriors (they looked like second line armor of the power rangers.)

      I hope you take everything more seriously now and Netflix will put more money into the costumes and hire someone with more proximity to the medieval fantasy theme

      1. I agree that I also could not see all that millions on the set, it looked very cheap to me. If they would just stick to the books and stop recording it like broadway then we would have a great show.

        But the eels and dario are coming back…. they are hiring cat walk models for important roles and are very proud of themselves anytime they shift from Sapkowski.

        I have very poor opinion about the writers and producers of this show and in my humble opinion most of people could not see it due to crazy chronology in season 1. Season 2 would make it much more visible. Of course I may be wrong, I actually hope I am wrong, because this show deserves better. I was really hoping Jason Momoa would be Regis

  2. Very cool! Congratulations to all! But did anyone have the idea of ​​calling some Polish professionals with experience in the folklore of the world of The Witcher? Someone indicated by Sapkowski for example? Good luck to everyone.

    1. Who gives two squeaks about folklore. A writer capable of good screenwriting would be nice. Closely followed by a director capable of good directing. Maybe accompanied by capable costume designer.

      1. Yes, but my only fear is the professionals there will get lost in references that are not from the Witcher World, making a medieval fantasy series is easy for those listed there …. the great job there is to do something that gets away from it .. .I hope you read the books and consume everything that exists in this world so that the fans feel accustomed to the world of The Witcher.

        Good luck to everyone;

  3. BRING GARETH EVANS for the action director, both on Witcher S02 & Witcher BO, maybe also as one of the writer too. I can guarantee it will be phenomenal. His works on recent GANGS OF LONDON is just a total action thriller transcendence. It has the best action thriller scenes in all of TV series history imo.

    1. I love that idea, I watched GOL and it was remarkable for most of it, but action, action scenes were impeccable my friend – every battle should be directed by someone like him. Maybe they will look like gypsy vs dutch special forces scene

  4. FYI bottom left is Jordan McCray! She’s a friend of mine and AMAZING writer I’m so excited to see her on this team with such a diverse and talented crew!

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