Updated: Senior Netflix employee may have leaked new Witcher release date

A Netflix employee responsible for “executive production” might just have leaked the release date of the first season of The Witcher as being October 2019.

Earlier rumours, including from the ever-reliable Recapped, had suggested a December release date for the show – but could it be coming two months earlier?

Giovanni Eūgene Altamarquéz is in executive production at Netflix, working on shows including Queer Eye, Mindhunter, and 13 Reasons Why.

His bios on both Twitter and Medium list release dates for those shows, and have just been updated on those sites to say The Witcher is coming “Oct. 2019”.

Altamarquéz’s 13 followers on Medium include a number of Netflix employees, and the profile can be found on his LinkedIn account, suggesting its veracity.

A release date of October with all eight episodes dropping at once would fit with the official schedule. Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos said in April that the show would release in Fall/Q4 2019.

Another possibility is that Altamarquéz has confused the date or is referring to another milestone. Given that he has only recently changed his bios and done so on two different sites, there was clear intention behind his updates, but expectations were of season one coming on to our screens in December.

Cast member John Cummins listed December as the release date for the show on his CV. Furthermore, posting after a wrap party in May, a member of the VFX team said they had “a great deal of work to do to get it ready to air in December”.

On May 12, Recapped reported that they heard the show would be available for binging from December 20. Recapped have a 100% record on Witcher news. They were the first to report the casting of both Henry Cavill and Anya Chalotra.

The show could also debut in October but with a weekly release schedule taking it into December, rather than all eight episodes being available at once. It would allow more time for work on the CGI for the final episodes. However, this is not something Netflix has done with any of its original productions making this option exceedingly unlikely, though a number of fans have called for it.

Altamarquéz’s update to his bio comes the day after the company responsible for the Comic Con promotional portraits of the main characters teased something Witcher-related “coming soon”.

The Hungarian firm released a “behind-the-scenes” image showing a keyboard and labels, with three of them including the word “portrait”.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Coming soon’ post raises hopes of new official Witcher promotion

With an IGN behind-the-scenes visit to Origo Studios and interviews from other outlets featuring the show’s stars completed and waiting for publication nearer release date, a target month of October would mean a whole feast of food earlier than we expected.

Either way, we’re getting The Witcher this year, and we’re enjoying all the speculation we’re seeing – and, above all, we hope it comes when it’s ready.

UPDATE #1: Altamarquéz offered a clarification on Twitter suggesting that Netflix is aiming for a late October, early November release date.

UPDATE #2: TheWitcher.tv has reported Netflix is investigating these claims. Redanian Intelligence has the report and more here.