Witch: The Origins of Blood, Netflix’s allocations for the prequel to his popular fantasy series, received a blow after his lead actress left the project.
Jodie Turner-Smith, who was supposed to play the elite elven warrior Éile, left the series due to a scheduling conflict, Variety reports. In a brief statement, a Netflix spokesman confirmed Turner-Smith’s departure in the news, but declined to comment further on the issue.
“Due to a change in the production schedule of the limited series‘ The Witcher: Blood Origin ’, unfortunately Jodie Turner-Smith will no longer be able to continue playing the role of Éile,” a Netflix spokesman said.
According to Turner-Smith’s IMDB page, the only other production for which the Queen & Slim star is reported is the action thriller Borderland. Turner-Smith starred alongside John Boyeg and Felicity Jones in the film, but little is known yet.
How harmful is Turner-Smith’s departure from The Witcher: Blood Origin?
As for the production in the TV show, it is not so harmful. Turner-Smith was just chosen for Éile in January, according to Rock, and the main photo of Blood Origin has yet to begin.
According to the Redanian Intelligence website, which covers every snippet of news about Netflix’s Witcher universe, filming on Blood Origin isn’t expected to begin until next month. In addition, showrunner Declan de Barra has just started writing scripts for the series in September 2020, which you can see in the tweet below.
Witch – the origin of blood. The first day! Except for the happiness of collaborating with such talented writers. Pinching! pic.twitter.com/tZkMlH3u3vSeptember 18, 2020
As for the role in the TV show, however, it’s not ideal to lose Turner-Smith just a month before Netflix starts filming Blood Origin. It will probably be a little crowded to hire another actress to play Éile now, unless de Barra and company have someone in reserve in case Turner-Smith has to bow.
There’s no word on who else could have been in the race to play Eila. Hopefully that won’t improve filming too much, especially when The Witcher season 2 finished filming last week.
It’s the end of Season 2! A white wolf is waiting for you on the continent. pic.twitter.com/SqrAbeelobApril 2, 2021
Set 1,200 years before the events of The Witcher, Blood Origin will follow Éile, an elven warrior with the voice of a goddess, who leaves her clan to follow her dream of being a musician. Of course, things don’t go according to plan and Éile is forced to take the blade once again in search of revenge and redemption.
A limited series of six episodes will also witness the creation of the first ‘Witcher’ prototype, leading to the Conjunction of the Spheres event that connects many worlds.
The Witcher: Blood Origin will be launched exclusively on Netflix, but of course there is no confirmed release date yet.