Liam Hemsworth as Gerald of RiviaScreenshot: Netflix YouTube
In real life, if you look at them side by side, Liam Hemsworth and Henry Cavill don’t really resemble each other. But put them in White Wolf wig and costume, and turn the brightness way down, and… man, The Witcher’s continuity problem isn’t seeming so dire now.
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After on-set photos of Hemsworth in his Geralt of Rivia ensemble leaked earlier this week, Netflix released a very short video revealing the first official glimpse of him in character. It’s gloomy, sure, but who else reacted by muttering “I can’t believe it’s not Cavill?”
The Witcher: Season 4 | First Look | Netflix
Season four of The Witcher—as previously announced, the show will end after its fifth installment, with seasons four and five filming back to back—is now in production, so don’t hold your breath for a trailer anytime soon. The fourth season of the adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher novels will be the first without Cavill as the titular monster-hunter, but it will feature the return of Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, and Joey Batey as Yennefer, Ciri, and Jaskier the bard—plus a few more new faces, including Laurence Fishburne and Sharlto Copley.
You can watch the previous three seasons of The Witcheron Netflix now.
Lauren Hissrich, showrunner for Netflix’s The Witcher series, says that an aspect of the show’s first season which many fans consider a plot hole was actually planned all along.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
Spoiler warning for The Witcher season 3.
In Making The Witcher: Season 3, a behind-the-scenes documentary on the production of the Netflix fantasy show, Hissrich explained how a single line of dialogue in the second volume of Season 3 explained why a certain character who was portrayed as a bit player in the first season of the show was actually a big deal despite getting his ass handed to him.
Back in season 1, Vilgefortz, who was basically Yennefer’s stepfather, engaged in, and lost, a battle against an enemy soldier named Cahir. Vilgefortz was basically outplayed at every turn in the nearly-two minute scuffle, having his sword taken from him and his nose bloodied before being unceremoniously kicked down a hill where his torso bounced off a tree trunk with all the grace of a deflated basketball. He survives this, although barely. You can check out the one-sided fight below.
However, toward the end of the third season, it’s revealed that Vilgefortz was actually the big bad the whole time. Prior to his confrontation with Geralt, Vilgefortz hints at his suspiciously sudden aptitude for dark magic, saying: “Know what the hardest part was? Holding back. Hiding my real skills, knowing I could take any life at any time. It was exasperating.”
What follows is an even more painful and one-sided battle between Vilgefortz and Geralt where the all-powerful mage gives Geralt a far worse trouncing than the one he received in Season 1, leaving the white wolf bedridden for the rest of the season.
Fans of author Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher books already knew that Vilgefortz was quite powerful, and some of them were pretty vocal about how upset they were at seeing his defeat at the hands of a slightly above-average soldier. Hissrich acknowledged fans’ initial outrage as they questioned the showrunners’ decision to have “Cahir very handily defeat Vilgefortz,” saying that the whole thing was dramatic irony for book readers and situational irony for those experiencing The Witcher for the first time through the Netflix series.
“Vilgefortz is the most powerful mage, there is no way [Cahir would win], he could kill Cahir by just looking at him. There’s a great moment [this season where] Vilgefortz explains… that the hardest thing for him about this long game is that he had to hide his skills. When we see his power demonstrated for the first time, it is against Geralt,” Hissirch said. Whether fans buy this explanation for the sudden reveal of Vilgefortz’s powers remains to be seen.
The author of The Witcher books, which inspired both the CD Projekt Red game series and the Netflix show of the same name, confirmed that he’s working on a new addition to the novels that tell the story of Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla of Cintria, and Yennefer of Vengerberg. It’ll be the first new Witcher book in 10 years—the last was 2013’s Season of Storms—but it likely won’t feature any of those beloved characters.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
According to fansite Redanian Intelligence, Andrzej Sapkowski was on a Ukrainian podcast called Fantastic Talk(s) and was asked what he was working on. Perhaps the man is preternaturally disposed to knowing when The Witcher discourse machine is chugging along, or maybe he has a special witcher sense, because he decided to just flat-out say that he’s “quite diligently” working on “a new book about witcher.”
“I never say these things with me because you never know,” he reportedly said (Redanian Intelligence does not detail how the interview was translated to English). “Maybe I’ll do something, maybe I won’t. And so far, when I said that I would write something, and then I didn’t write it, people complained as if I had deceived them and as if I had lied.”
“That’s why I don’t like to talk about what I’m doing until I finish doing it. Because until I finish it, I don’t think it exists. But since I always make exceptions for Ukrainians, I will do it this time too,” he continued.
Sapkowski then said that the next book in the Witcher universe could “take a year, but no longer” to finish. Geralt fans who are mourning the loss of Henry Cavill as the White Wolf in the Netflix series (he’s leaving for unknown reasons and being replaced by Liam Hemsworth), shouldn’t get too excited for more Geralt content, however, as Sapkowski has made it clear before that Geralt and Ciri’s story is over and done with.
Could the next book be a prequel, like the upcoming TV series based on Ciri’s crew of violent teenagers, The Rats, that’s currently in development at Netflix? Could it tell the story of another conjunction, another joining of different worlds like that one that kicked off the events of The Witcher, with elves and humans forced to share a continent together? More importantly: Is Sapkowski keeping the CDPR team in the loop? The studio is working on a new Witcher trilogy, after all….
The first episode of The Witcher season 3 begins with a lengthy recap of the previous two seasons: flashes of Henry Cavill in that initial, questionable Geralt wig, Freya Allen as a much-younger, more eyebrow-less Ciri, everyone’s shittier eye contacts, sword fights, magic, and a bit of sex. While watching, I was viscerally reminded of how much ground the series has covered since its 2019 debut—how much better the makeup and styling got, how impressively legible the sword fights are, the undeniable sexiness of most of the cast, and how utterly perfect Cavill is as the eponymous witcher, Geralt of Rivia.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
Netflix’s The Witcher pulls from Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novel series of the same name (which inspired CD Projekt Red’s game franchise), though there are many creative liberties taken with the twisting, turning, time-traveling books. The show can sometimes be a bit of a mess when it comes to plot, getting mired in the political goings-on instead of laser-focusing on the core trio of Geralt, Ciri, and mage Yennefer, but it shines whenever it gives those three center stage. It’s then that you remember: Cavill was made to play Geralt.
Cavill’s physicality and familiarity with Sapkowski’s universe shine in every moment he’s on screen—he perfectly captures the quiet kindness and probing philosophical mind that Geralt displays so often in the books. Geralt can kill you with his bare hands, but he can also have a riveting debate with you about war and race relations, and Cavill embodies that perfectly. I don’t know if I’d call Cavill an excellent actor, but he is an excellent Geralt.
There’s also a special kind of physicality that Cavill brings to the role that’s largely rooted in his ability to do many of his own stunts. While watching this season, I found myself wondering: “Did Cavill take notes from Tom Cruise while on the set of Mission Impossible: Fallout?” Cruise famously does almost all of his own stunts, continuously pushing the limits of what a Hollywood actor can pull off on-screen, and the payoff is obvious: the Mission Impossible films are the best modern action movies by a country mile.
Netflix
Cavill has been working with stunt coordinator Wolfgang Stegemann since Fallout—the two worked together to choreograph the iconic one-shot fight scene from The Witcher season 1, so the connection isn’t all that far-fetched. And Stegemann told GamesRadar that “it’s beautiful to see an actor who’s doing all the stunts themselves. I have a great stunt team but I don’t need a stunt double for him. [This means] I’m able to shoot special camera positions that I would never be able to do without him.”
Will Hemsworth have that kind of dedication to his role? The Witcher series often falters in plot progression and occasionally in character development, but whenever Cavill is fighting in a scene, you can’t look away. And in Season 3, he gets fight scenes and emotionally deep moments in spades, reminding us time and time again that he’s an excellent Geralt of Rivia.
The Witcher without Cavill
Bizarrely, even Netflix seems determined to reassure viewers that yes, Cavill is still in this season of The Witcher. A recent marketing campaign projected the words “Yes, he’s still Geralt in season 3 of The Witcher” on buildings and cliff faces around the world. Sadly he won’t be Geralt in season 4 of The Witcher, and that’s what I’m most worried about.
The Witcher Season 3 is split into two parts with the second set of episodes coming later this month. The first set of episodes ended on a cliffhanger, making the wait for those new episodes feel just a bit longer. Spoilers below for the books, but the second half of the season will likely kick off with the Thanedd coup, an infamous battle that horrifically injures Geralt. He carries that injury with him for the rest of the series, and the aftermath of the coup has major reverberations throughout the entire continent: It dissolves the mages’ Brotherhood, it separates Ciri from Geralt, it crowns an elven queen, it imprisons Yennefer.
The Thanedd coup will drastically shift the series’ pace—expect it to move rapidly, expect the stakes to be upped tenfold, expect your heart to be broken over and over again. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Cavill shouldering the exciting future of The Witcher, but I’ll keep an open mind. Maybe Hemsworth has got the chops, and his Geralt of Rivia will be one for the ages. The Witcher showrunners have promised a “flawless” and “meta” transition from Cavill to Hemsworth, so I’m at least looking forward to seeing how they pull that one off.
The Witcher Season 3 Volume 1 is streaming now on Netflix; Volume 2 is due out on July 27.
The first time the internet saw DCU Superman star Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher, it howled in collective laughter over the terrible wig. Four years later, fans are losing their minds that Hollywood’s leading himbo won’t be reprising the role after season three ends. One obvious explanation for why is that Cavill has signed on to shoot a new Superman movie, but fans think the real reason Cavill is leaving is that he’s tired of fighting with Netflix to keep The Witcher true to its literary source material.
The surprising news of Cavill’s impending departure was shared yesterday in a statement by Netflix that also announced Liam Hemsworth of Hunger Games fame would be taking over the role in season four. “As with the greatest of literary characters, I pass the torch with reverence for the time spent embodying Geralt and enthusiasm to see Liam’s take on this most fascinating and nuanced of men,” Cavill was quoted as saying. “Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving in and seeing what you can find.”
While many were disappointed that The Man From U.N.C.L.E. would no longer be caught growling “Roach” at horses in future seasons, Witcher fans took the news especially badly. Subreddits for the books, games, and Netflix series blew up with disbelief, frustration, and memes, while conspiracy theories got passed around on Twitter that Cavill had been more or less forced out over creative differences with a production that has at times taken generous liberties with Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s original novels. Certain parts of the Witcher fandom have always had a toxic relationship with the show, fuming over certain casting choices and plot deviations, and Cavill’s departure is now being taken as validation of every criticism they’ve ever had.
To support their theories, fans point to a breadcrumb trailof previous interview quotes by Cavill about his desire to keep Netflix’s Geralt true to the one originally put to paper in the pages of fantasy magazine Fantastyka back in 1986. Less than a year ago the actor said he told the Hollywood Reporter he was “absolutely” committed to the show’s seven-season plan “as long as we can keep telling great stories which honor [author Andrzej] Sapkowski’s work.”
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During the media tour around season two’s release last year, Cavill spoke repeatedly about campaigning to bring more three-dimensionality to Geralt, noting that in addition to a brutish monster slayer he’s also wise, thoughtful, and an “amateur philosopher.” “This season, I really wanted to make sure that we represented the book’s Geralt more accurately, and that we saw him speak more,” he told Total Film at the time. “I pushed really, really hard for that.”
Then there was showrunner Lauren Hissrich’s own comments about Cavill’s preparation for season two. “A lot of the notes he was sending to me were about Geralt’s dialogue—could he, first of all, say more,” she told Hollywood Reporter. “Everybody came out of season one laughing and loving Geralt’s fuming. But Henry was saying that when you read the books you spend a lot of time in Geralt’s head. So how can we put that on the page?”What about Cavill’s aspirations for the future of the series? “I’m a huge fan of the books and staying loyal to them, and it’s about making sure that story happens without too much in the way of diversions or side things going on to muddy the waters,” he said during a Netflix Geeked conversation last year. Adding fuel to the fire was a recent interview with Beau DeMayo, a former producer on The Witcher who is now running X-Men ‘97 on Disney+, where he said some writers “actively disliked” and even “mocked” the source material.
Screenshot: Netflix
Some fans’ takeaways from these soundbytes has been that while Hissrich was focused on making the show what she wanted it to be, Cavill was the only one interested in trying to keep it grounded in the original version of the characters. This comes in the context of long Reddit threads like this one where fans have detailed all of the ways season two was different from the books, with fears that season three, not set to air until the summer of 2023, might include even larger departures.
While the theory is a compelling one when collapsed into a couple of viral tweets, the show’s place within the larger fandom has always been more complicated than that. Hissrich was temporarily chased off Twitter prior to season one’s release when racist fans petitioned Netflix to only let a white woman play the lead role of Ciri, Geralt’s adopted daughter. Then there were those on the edge of the fandom with no knowledge of or interest in the grimdark fantasy series until Netflix spent tens of millions bringing it to life. “Book purists are hurting the experience for new fans,” wrote one user on the show’s subreddit last year. Then there are fans of CD Projekt Red’s Witcher video game trilogy which takes huge liberties with the storytelling, and has effectively created its own parallel lore.
Whether Cavill was a purist on set is almost beside the point. His role in season two clearly did little to prevent some of the narrative departures fans took the biggest issue with. But he was clearly the glue holding the show’s disparate fandoms together. The fact that he loves PC gaming and painting Warhammer miniatures in his free time, and obviously was a big fan of Sapkowski’s books, gave him huge street cred with even the worst diehard Witcher fans. Normies and newcomers loved him too, not because he’s a pedant when it comes to the lore but because he’s a charismatic presence that did, in the end, manage to combine tenderness, ruthlessness, and a morbid wit into something deeper than his Halloween Spirit costume initially suggested. “I think the glue that held it together really was Henry Cavill as Geralt,” former Kotaku senior critic Harper Jay said during a 2018 VG chat about the first season.
With that glue gone, The Witcher season four has its work cut out for it with the circumstances around Cavill’s leaving dogging it at every turn. Whether Hemsworth is up to the task or not, the news at least comes with season three already wrapped. Fans will get one last chance to return to that world with Cavill as an anchor. I’m sure it will all go fine, and not stoke even more conspiratorial speculation over creative differences.
