I b▨ounced off Netflix' The Witcher series halfway through season two, so I’ve only been half paying attention to all the drama surrounding it. I knew that Henry Cavill was out, and that it seemed like it had something to do with Superman, but then it wasn’t about Superman, but then it was about the showrunners disrespecting the source material, but then it was about Cavi🐎ll being kind of a creep on set, but then I decided to stop feeding into this weird parasocial dynamic and tune the whole thing out. I do remember Netflix quickly recasting Liam Hemsworth as Geralt, which seemed like a weird decision. As I said, I didn’t care for season two, so I was surprised that the show wasn’t simply ending with Cavill’s departure.
As someone that’s partially out of the loop, imagine my surprise when the season three trailer came out this week and, lo and behold, there’s Henry Cavill playing Geralt. So what happened? Did he change his mind after James Gunn revealed he was taking Superman in a different direction? I never heard he was returning to The Witcher, but there he is. You’re probably a step ahead of me right now, because I just learned that Cavill is still playing Geralt in the next season - which is actually two seasons - and he’s being replaced by Hemsworth after that. Seven months before the premꦑiere of Cavill’s last season, we already knew he was being recast for a season we won’t see until at least 2025, if ever.
What was the benefit of Netflix telling us all of this? Because it seems like it’s only made things worse. The buzz around Cavill’s last season is abysmal. It would be one thing if it was the planned end of the series, but knowing that it’s just goinꦉg to continue on without the guy that everyone already loves has made the fanbase turn against the entire thing.
Cavill exists at the intersection of Snyderverse fans and gamers, the two most toxic fandoms on the internet, and every conversation that surrounds him and The Witcher is deeply conspiratorial and parasocial. Instead of enjoying his final turn as Geralt, everyone is going to be watching his last season to look for evidence that he was unhappy, or that he wa🧸s pushed out, or that the show betrayed the source material. Writers on The Witcher, including showrunner Lauren S. Hisജsrich, have gotten a ton of harassment from gamers over the years, and it's only going to get worse from here on out.
I realize they had to break the news that Cavill was leaving the show eventually, but why connect it to Hemsworth and a future seꩵason right away? Netflix could have let Cavill make his Instagram post that he was leaving the show, said nothing, and just let people assume season three would be the last one. Instead, they tried to manufacture some kind of passing of the torch by releasing dual statements back in November where Cavill gives Hemsworth his blessing. If that was a strategy designed to smooth things over, it didn’t work at all.
Netflix has poisoned the well on the upcoming season, and I wouldn’t be surprised if viewership dropped so low that the streamer reevaluated if season four was even worth it, especially with a writer’s strike on the horizon. I don’t see why Netflix couldn’t have treated the upcoming season as the last one, then excitedly announced the return of the show for season four with Hemsworth, and got Cavill’s blessing then. Neither solution would have the best optics, recasting a beloved lead is always going to look bad, but at least it wouldn’t have pissed everyone off months before the next season aired, let alone the next next season. Netflix isn’t known for its good decision making, but this one seems🐽 particularly misguided.
