Filming for Season 3 of The Witcher is fast racing to the finish line with barely a month left to go. Earlier this month, filming suffered a small setback when lead star Henry Cavill tested positive for COVID. He has since recovered and is back with the rest of the cast filming one of the most pivotal events in The Witcher saga – the Thanedd ball and coup.
If you can’t stay in Sahara, make Sahara at home
Directors Loni Peristere and Bola Ogun are both busy filming their respective episodes. While Loni Peristere is filming the Thanedd coup at Longcross Studios, Bola Ogun who directs the final two episodes is filming the scenes where Ciri is lost in the Korath Desert.
As we remember, significant parts of the sequence were filmed last month near Erfoud, Morocco when Freya Allan and The Witcher crew traveled there in the beginning of July. Now that they are in London, they have chosen a location that closely resembles the Moroccan desert to film extensions of the sequence.
For the last couple of days, The Witcher has been filming at a quarry on the outskirts of London, which we believe is the Moorhouse Sandpits near Oxted. Since it is a private property, we could not get photos of the set or the filming but it is quite certain that the quarry scenes are an extension of the scenes filmed in Morocco. Freya Allan who plays Ciri is on location.
In our previous report, we shared that last Friday, parts of the desert scenes were filmed in the studio as well. Undoubtedly, it is a significant event this season.
Ciri’s adventure in the Korath desert is an important part of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Time of Contempt. Korath, which is described as the frying pan of the earth is harsh, hostile, and a place of certain death because no human can survive the extreme heat, thirst, and the monsters that live there.
Ciri accidentally lands in the desert when she escapes the Thanedd coup through the Benavent portal. The portal being unstable ejects her over the sands of Korath. Lost, she wanders through the desert when she meets the unicorn Ihuarraquax, and they cross the desert together. Korath has a very traumatic experience on Ciri, which affects many of the choices she makes later in the story.
Season 3 of The Witcher is in production until September 2022 for a 2023 release. The live-action prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin is in post-production after two weeks of reshoots and is currently eyed for a Christmas 2022 release. Stay tuned to Redanian Intelligence and do pop into our Discord server to join in on The Witcher conversation.