Despite favourable reviews from critics, the TV series faced some backlash online due to its diverse cast and lose adaption of the original source material. Bernard Cornwell has now addressed some of the concerns in the Official The Winter King Podcast (available on all podcast platforms):
I think they did a magnificent job, a quite extraordinary job, so I think you’re in for a treat.
I mean, I think the casting has been superb. The one member of the cast who actually dazzled me was Ellie James playing Nimue, which was almost exactly as I’d in a sense imagined Nimue.
So obviously when you get a character on screen, who’s doing exactly what you put her in to do in the book, you like it. She has a force which is remarkable and she’s a formidable young woman, Nimue, and she has a great role to play in the rest of the series of course.
Not always as a heroine but she’s a very complicated lady, is Nimue, and Ellie James I think caught her superbly, perfectly in fact, and I think the casting has been superb all through and Iain [de Caestecker] makes a wonderful Arthur.
ITVX will release ALL episodes of The Winter King on 21 December 2023 in the UK.
Previously, the plan had been to split up the season in 2 parts and release them on 21 and 27 December 2023 respectively.
The 10-part series, which was filmed between July 2022 and January 2023 in Wales and the West Country, premiered on 20 August 2023 on MGM+ in the USA.
It is also available on Crave (Canada), Stan (Australia), TVNZ (New Zealand) and OCS (France). It will be released on Timvision in Italy on 6 December 2023, on Movistar Plus+ in Spain on 29 December 2023 and on Magenta TV in Germany on 01 January 2024.
ETA (19 December 2023):
Thanks to Facebook user Lykke Ma we can add Viaplay (Denmark) to the places where The Winter King is streaming! #WatchThisPlace as we add more info as soon as we find out more!
If you want to dive deeper into the world of The Winter King, you will have the chance to listen to inside stories that “key cast, crew and creatives” share with host David Craig. The Official Podcast premieres with a sneak peek on 14 December 2023, followed by all episodes dropping on 21 December 2023.
Available on all of your podcast platforms!
Let’s hope the “key cast” also includes Andrew Gower! #WatchThisSpace for more information!
Season 1 of The Winter King, based on the Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell and which follows Arthur Pendragon as he evolves from outcast son to legendary warrior and leader, is still being released on different streaming services around the world and fans are already (im-)patiently asking about a potential Season 2.
In a recent interview with Esquire Middle East, lead actor Iain De Caestecker (Arthur) talked about all things The Winter King and ultimately was asked about his own professional future and whether it might include more seasons of the “bold and revisionist take on well-loved Arthurian legends”. His answer certainly gives hope for more!
ESQ: You’ve played a doctor, a high school teacher, and now a king – what’s next?
IDC: It’s really hard to plan ahead in terms of what you would like to do. Right now I’m just really excited for the show to come out. We worked really hard on it, I can’t wait to see what people think of it. I love it. I also know that the writers are back busily writing season two. Nothing is confirmed yet but we’re all really excited about the prospect of getting back on the saddle, literally and metaphorically.
The 10-part series, which was filmed between July 2022 and January 2023 in Wales and the West Country, premiered on 20 August 2023 on MGM+ in the USA.
It is also available on Crave (Canada), Stan (Australia) and OCS (France). It will be released on Timvision in Italy on 6 December 2023, on Movistar Plus+ in Spain on 29 December 2023 and on Magenta TV in Germany on 01 January 2024.
ITVX, which produced the series in cooperation with Bad Wolf TV, will release all episodes in the UK on 21 December 2023.
Avid book readers will know that Sansum plays an important role in Enemy of Godand Excalibur, the follow-up books to The Winter King, so we’re keeping our fingers and toes crossed that Andrew Gower will be able to reprise his role in future seasons!
Travis Beacham already teased that S3 of Impact Winter is in development and that he is back in London using #ImpactWinter, so could this be about a different, new project? Maybe it is connected to this post from 14 November 2023?
The Winter King, which premiered last Sunday on MGM+ to overwhelmingly positive reviews, has found a home in Germany.
German Telekom’s Magenta TV will show the episodes in early 2024. While no exact release date has been given so far, speculation points to January 2024.
„The Winter King“ basiert auf der „Warlord Chronicles“-Serie von Bernard Cornwell (The Last Kingdom), das als Mischung aus historischer Fiktion und Legende beschrieben wird. „The Winter King“ spielt im fünften Jahrhundert, lange Zeit bevor Großbritannien vereinigt wurde, einem brutalen Land, das aus verschiedenen Fraktionen und Stämmen bestand. Im Zentrum geht es um Arthur Pendragon, der sich vom Außenseiter zum legendären Krieger und Anführer entwickelt.
The Winter King premiered on 20 August 2023 on MGM+ (USA), on 21 August 2023 on Stan (Australia) and will be released on 10 September on Crave (Canada) as well as “later this year” (rumours pointing towards Decemer) on ITVX (UK).
ETA (21 November 2023):
TV Wunschliste reported today that the episodes will be available on MagentaTV in Germany on 01 January 2024. What a way to start the new year!
In Australia streaming service Stan will show the episodes on Mondays, the day after the USA while Canadians fans can enjoy the revisionist take on the Arthurian legend on Crave starting on 10 September 2023.
Andrew’s British fans will have to wait a little longer. So far ITVX has not announced a release date but rumour has it placed in December 2023.
As epic Arthurian drama The Winter King nears completion, executive producers Julie Gardner and Lachlan MacKinnon tell DQ about adapting Bernard Cornwell‘s Warlord Chronicles for television, playing with magic and being inspired by The West Wing.
Commissioned by ITVX in the UK and MGM+ in the US, The Winter King is set in the fifth century, long before Britain was united, in a brutal land of warring factions and tribes, where lives were often fleeting. The series follows Arthur Pendragon as he evolves from outcast to legendary warrior and leader.
“The Saxons arrive on our shores and they’re the true enemy of the kingdom, so [Arthur] was trying to find a new way to rule and to unite the various tribes together to stand up against them. But, of course, it’s never that simple, and love and Guinevere get in the way. There are so many different layers to it.”
With Australian streamer Stan announcing that the series will launch down under on August 21, the same day as it arrives in the US, work is rapidly progressing to deliver the finishing touches to the show, which is distributed internationally by Sony Pictures Television.
Filming took place last summer in places such as St Audries Bay in Somerset, Rhossili Bay on the Gower Peninsula, Cheddar Gorge and Morlais Quarry, while Caer Cadarn was a set build near Cribbs Causeway. Avalon, Merlin and Nimue’s home, takes its exterior from Blaise Castle, while its interior was constructed at a studio in Bristol.
“When you’re doing deep period, it’s like doing an alien planet on Doctor Who. You’ve got to build the rules and the logic,” [Julie Gardner] says. “We felt a lot of deep period could either be muddy, brown, dark and rainy, and a tough visual viewing experience, or incredibly beautiful, where you’ve got gorgeous people in chiffon and furs. What we’ve tried to do in this piece is bring the two together and give it real beauty, but also make it quite grounded so there are real emotions and real issues playing through the piece.”
[…] it’s a very grim world to live in. Avalon is full of colour and beauty. But Otto [Bathurst, lead director] wants this to be the definitive version of Arthurian legend and to really get under the skin of the real Arthur. It’s not the slightly colourful Arthur who’s very pumped up with shiny armour. He’s very much a man of his time and of his people as well. It’s a different side from the Arthur we’ve seen before.”
With Merlin among the roster of characters, The Winter King features magical elements.
“Every time there’s been a moment involving magic, we’ve always made sure it was grounded within the narrative and not making it feel like something that takes away from the power of Merlin, for example,” MacKinnon notes. “If it’s a vision or something that Merlin’s having, it will be within the narrative. It won’t be some sort of deus ex machina moment that takes away from the audience’s enjoyment of it.”
Diversity in front and behind the camera was carefully considered too. “We’re not making, in 2023, the white King Arthur story,” Gardner says. “It’s key to us that we cast diversity in the main roles, and we had a script-editing team who really dug deep into the research of the period. This was quite a diverse moment for England at the time, so we’ve really embraced that.”
Executive Producer Lachlan MacKinnon originally thought the series could be drawn out across three seasons – one per book – as was the approach when adapting Philip Pullman’s novel trilogy His Dark Materials.
But once writers Kate Brooke (A Discovery Of Witches, Medici) and Ed Whitmore (Manhunt) began working, “we started to realise there’s way more than three seasons here,” MacKinnon says. “The books are just so rich in character and story, and also in a political context. […] We wanted it to feel much more like a political show, and [The West Wing] led a lot on our thinking of the tone.”
Arthur Pendragon (Iain De Caestecker) and his father High King Uther (Eddie Marsan)
The Winter King includes material from only two-thirds of the first book in The Warlord Chronicles but has made two key changes to the source material. The first is introducing an origin story for Arthur himself, who doesn’t appear until later in the novel of the same name. The second is structural: Cornwell’s novels have Derfel retelling the story as an old man, but that device has been removed for the screen.
The series, however, adopts the multi-character perspectives used in Cornwell’s novels, following Derfel, who as a child is saved by Arthur from a death pit, and Merlin’s apprentice Nimue, alongside Arthur.
“They’re much younger characters, so we see the whole world through their eyes,” MacKinnon says. “And of course, we still have the familiar characters like Merlin and Guinevere. But what Bernard [Cornwell]did so well in the novels is give the female characters agency, so Guinevere is Arthur’s consigliere, so she’s always part of his political thinking and planning.”
Early development is now starting on a potential second season, with filming likely to start this summer if it is greenlit or risk waiting another year. But should the show run to only its initial 10 episodes, despite the huge amount of Cornwell’s material left on the table, the producers are confident they have created wholly satisfactory story arcs for the main characters.
Introducing The Winter King: Official Podcast 
Andrew Gower Online 