Netflix’s The Witcher May Have Been Recast, but Henry Cavill Leaving Signals a Much Bigger Departure

Fans of The Witcher TV series were taken aback earlier this year when the show was renewed for Season 4 without its leading man as Henry Cavill left behind the Geralt of Rivia role. Liam Hemsworth will instead take the mantle, and executive producer and showrunner Lauren Hissrich hopes the change will bring a new energy to the Netflix series.

“What I’m excited about is that we are allowing this franchise to continue growing, and that we get new energy and chemistry that we haven’t discovered yet,” she tells IGN. “And to me that’s part of the fun of television; you don’t know where exactly the adventure is going to end. So it’s something I’m really excited about.”

The odd thing about this to some Witcher fans, however, is that Hissrich and Netflix should know exactly where the adventure is going to end. Both she and the cast have spoken in the past about their love for the original Witcher novels by Andrzej Sapkwoski, saying the production team is committed to maintaining the story laid out in the eight-book series.

The biggest defender of this philosophy was Cavill himself, who often derailed interviews with nerdy anecdotes of Geralt, Yennefer, Dandelion, and company from deep within the pages of the original Witcher saga. The biggest concern surrounding his leaving therefore isn’t a protagonist’s recasting three seasons in, but it potentially signalling the departure of what makes The Witcher so good in the first place.

The following paragraphs contain spoilers for Netflix’s The Witcher Season 1 and 2, alongside minor spoilers from Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher book series.

Now, I’m absolutely not a defender of sticking to the script religiously. Converting the books’ story scene for scene would make a terrible TV show, and I like how Netflix has reached key plot points in different ways. It’s even, dare I say, done some things better than Sapkowski. The crux of Season 3 will see the institution of mages crumble in a bloody battle, for example, but Hissrich and team have already set up the main players and tensions. The book’s versions of events presented all these characters in one go, forcing me to read the entire section twice to understand what happened. That being said, it’s when Netflix completely abandons the source material that the show is at its weakest.

The Witcher’s world began as a twisted take on fairy tales: Its version of Snow White sees the princess rob and pillage with seven gnomes before she murders them; the Little Mermaid here is a snarky political debate between two stubborn sides; and Beauty is killed by the Beast in Sapkowski’s version. It’s the high fantasy of Lord of the Rings with the brutality and grit of Game of Thrones.

When Netflix therefore introduced its Season 2 antagonist as a spooky witch in the woods who’s just sort of magic for magic’s sake, or its monolith plot that appears to be as deep as, ‘Geralt kills monsters so lets make tougher monsters,’ I can’t help but feel that Netflix completely missed the point of why people love The Witcher. Partner this with former producer Beau DeMayo saying that some writers “actively disliked” and even mocked Sapkowski’s books, and my hopes for an interesting live-action take on this incredible and unique fantasy world have slowly dwindled.

The same appears to be true for Cavill, who said in November last year that he was absolutely committed to a seven season run of The Witcher “as long as we can keep telling great stories which honour Sapkowski’s work.” The fact he chose to leave the show just a few months later, following the filming of Season 3, is pretty damning.

We’ll see the last of Cavill in a white wig when Season 3 premieres next summer, but it’ll be another few years before we get to see which direction Netflix goes in its supposedly open-ended adventure. Hemsworth will likely do a fine job as the new Geralt of Rivia, but I don’t think he’ll do so with a world or story that Witcher fans are excited about.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.