It’s been quite the wait, but the fourth season of The Witcher is almost here. In a teaser shared this weekend, Netflix finally revealed the release date: October 30. The video also provided an extended look at Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia — a casting change that fans naturally have a lot of feelings about after Henry Cavill won their hearts with his take on the character in the first three seasons. The minute-and-a-half-long clip doesn’t give away too much about season four, but we now have a proper sense of what our new Geralt looks and sounds like.
This season will also see Laurence Fishburne join as Regis, Sharlto Copley as Leo Bonhart and James Purefoy as Skellen. It’s , and the streaming company has said that the two final seasons will cover the last three books in the series: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow and Lady of the Lake. But, fans still have more Witcher content to look forward to yet outside of the show. (the game) is on the way, though we don’t yet have a release date.
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.
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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.
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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….
On Wednesday, CD Projekt Red juiced up The Witcher 3 with yet another patch, giving the eight-year-old fantasy role-playing game improved cross-platform progression on consoles, new features for Nintendo Switch, and even better-looking grass for touching purposes.
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The Witcher 3’s version 4.04 patch introduces a hodgepodge of graphical updates and quality-of-life improvements to both console and PC versions of the game, as well as bringing certain specific improvements to the Nintendo Switch. In short, the latest patch improves the Switch’s cross-progression feature making it so that, once logged in to your CD Projekt Red account, you can pick up where you left off in The Witcher 3 on other platforms. The Switch is also getting the Netflix-inspired content other consoles received in the last patch.
Aside from numerous bug fixes like, umm… “mending grass collision,” patch 4.04 has also made it so you don’t have to do so much fussing in menu screens during combat, letting you switch oils and potions right from the game’s radial menu. It’s a welcome change, since oils are vital tools in taking down specific monsters. Now Geralt can bathe his sword in whatever specific concoction will help him defeat the beasties he’s currently battling without you needing to break the flow of combat by opening up the pause menu and fiddling around with witcher’s brew.
These quality-of-life updates come as the second half of the third season of Netflix’s Witcher series—the final season with actor Henry Cavill in the role of Geralt—is almost upon us. In his absence, Liam Hemsworth will take up the Roach-riding mantle, debuting as the Butcher of Blaviken in the show’s fourth season.
The second part of The Witcher’s third season will premiere on the streamer on July 27.
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.
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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.
Epic Games’ battle royale shooter Fortnite has some new characters joining in on the quest for the W: The Witcher 3’s Ciri, Geralt of Rivia’s adopted daughter, and his love interest Yennefer of Vengerberg are now available in the game’s item shop.
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The popular ladies of The Witcher franchise storm Fortnite with two islands of their own: Ciri’s Escape and Yennefer’s Battleground, both of which can be accessed through the game’s Discover tab. Or, if you’d rather land on the islands immediately, you can enter code 2776-4034-8400 for Ciri’s and 2862-9616-5689 for Yennefer’s. Completing either Ciri’s or Yennefer’s islands will net you emoticons of each, while finishing both of them will reward you with a fancy banner to show off. The two islands will be live until July 4.
The real draw here are the equippable skins, though you’ll have to shell out some V-Bucks for them. Currently Yennefer can be bought either on her own for 1,500 V-Bucks (approximately $12 USD) or in a bundle with her Megascope pickaxe, bird skull back bling, and Black Wings emote in which she summons her magical raven for 1,800. Ciri, meanwhile, is only available in a pack for 2,000 V-Bucks, and comes with both back bling and a pickaxe of her silver sword Zireael, as well as a basilisk glider. There are some cool touches to these skins, as well. Ciri’s hands, for example, will glow green when holding her Zireael Sword Pickaxe. And Yennefer’s just a badass. Who wouldn’t want to embody her essence?
Unfortunately, Geralt isn’t joining Ciri and Yennefer to duke it out for the win this time around, as the White Wolf was previously an unlockable skin Battle Pass owners were able to acquire back in Chapter 4 Season 1. As a result, he probably won’t be for sale at any point, though those who unlocked him can, of course, use him any time. Ah well, if we can’t have him back, then replacing him with two of the most powerful women in The Witcher seems like a fair trade.
When most of us experience a glitch, we can soothe our woes by simply reloading our game, or perhaps looking up a solution online. But PaschalisG16 has already tried that, and much more. No matter what this Witcher 3: Wild Hunt player does, though, their Geralt is walking around with a floating hammer stuck between his legs.
It goes everywhere Geralt goes. Cutscene? Hammer. Tearing down a monster? Hammer. And so PaschalisG16 ended up making a Reddit thread asking what the hell was going on and more importantly, could anyone lend a helping hand? You can probably guess what happened next: an endless array of dick jokes. Oh no. Perhaps the funniest thing about it is that, buried under dozens and dozens of replies like “Tis the most mighty of all the man-mallets” and “Giggity” is the OP once more, to zero effect, pleading for people to stay on topic.
“Does anyone wanna actually help? It’s not THAT funny,” PaschalisG16 wrote, if you scrolled down far enough to see it.
Speaking to Kotaku, PaschalisG16 admits that the oddly persistent hammer is not that big of a deal but that “my OCD makes me hate it a little bit,” so they want to get rid of it even though it doesn’t affect gameplay at all. In fact, PaschalisG16 has gone ahead and done things like saving Dandelion from the soldiers in Novigrad with the hammer in tow. What makes this entire ordeal so amusing is just how pervasive the damn hammer has ended up being. They’ve started a new game. They’ve reloaded a new save. The hammer won’t go away. Worse, replies reveal that other players are suffering the same fate as well.
The issue isn’t new, based on various internet threads over the years from baffled players who, much like the top picture suggests, always end up stripping Geralt naked in an effort to delete the hammer. Reading the troubleshooting is kind of hilarious: Yes, Geralt has tried meditating the hammer away. No, your suggestion isn’t going to work.
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“Unfortunately, I could not play with him when I realized that [the hammer] was with me now forever,” reads one thread from almost four years ago. “This destroyed the atmosphere of the game, constantly following me, I could not take my eyes off [the hammer] almost all the time. I could not forget this, I began to go crazy with this hammer,” they recounted, clearly traumatized by the whole thing.
While in-game meditating didn’t get rid of the pesky hammer, embodying its teachings did, in a roundabout way.
“However, the time has come, and I calmed down,” the 2019 hammer sufferer went on to say, before sharing a picture of the hammer, Geralt, and Ciri sitting around a campfire like a happy family. They’d accepted their fate and were now sharing what was the equivalent of a photo album dedicated to the hammer. “I was able to complete the game, one of the DLCS. Now this is my new bro, companion, like Roach. I realized that there was no point in paying attention to him and continuing to play as if nothing had happened. And it’s good that I was able to come to this, because the game deserves passing.”
But, uh, seriously, if anyone knows how to fix this, can you hit PaschalisG16 up?
We’ve featured German cosplayer Maul a ton of times on Kotaku, maybe more than any other individual cosplayer, and there’s a very good reason for that: just look at these photos.
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While he’s best known for his recurring takes on Geralt of Rivia, ranging from “being Geralt” to “being Geralt skateboarding in LA”, Maul has also done a ton of work—both paid (like this, this one’s an ad for PlayStation) and personal—on series like Dishonored, Cyberpunk and Metal Gear Solid as well.
Today, though, we’re looking at his latest shoot, an incredible take on God of War’s Kratos for the release of Ragnarok that sees Maul (and his team) nailing just about everything, from the costume to the weathered leather to the bodypaint to the muscles to the beard to…more muscles (which, despite Maul’s considerable size IRL, are in this case a suit)
Yes, the axe is cool. Sure, the fights are tons of fun. And I definitely enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny of the large worlds you get to visit. But what kept me glued to my PS5 for nearly 40 hours was the story of a son becoming a man and a father trying to figure out how he feels about that. I probably could have enjoyed this story a tad more with about half as many puzzles and skill menus, but even so, I found myself smiling, feeling satisfied, as the credits rolled. As I said at the start, God of War Ragnarök is very good.
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.
The Witcher’s Geralt Of Rivia is getting a new lead actor.
Credit: Netflix
Henry Cavill is leaving Netflix’s The Witcher after Season 3 the streaming service announced today.
Widely regarded as the best thing about the fantasy drama, and a crucial part of its success, the departure will no doubt shock fans of the series.
Cavill is being replaced by Liam Hemsworth, brother to Thor actor Chris Hemsworth.
“My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4,” Cavill announced on Instagram. “In my stead, the fantastic Mr Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf. 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. Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving in and seeing what you can find.”
“As a Witcher fan I’m over the moon about the opportunity to play Geralt of Rivia,” Hemsworth said, also via Instagram. “Henry Cavill has been an incredible Geralt, and I’m honoured that he’s handing me the reins and allowing me to take up the White Wolf’s blades for the next chapter of his adventure. Henry, I’ve been a fan of yours for years and was inspired by what you brought to this beloved character. I may have some big boots to fill, but I’m truly excited to be stepping into The Witcher world.”
I admit, I had to check my calendar to make sure this wasn’t an April Fool’s day prank.
Alas, that does not seem to be the case.
Liam Hemsworth
Credit: Netflix
This Is Not Good
I have nothing against Liam Hemsworth but recasting a character four seasons in is never a good thing. When it’s the very distinct, very well-established lead protagonist it’s a catastrophe in the making.
Frankly, The Witcher was already showing signs of weakness in Season 2, and it’s possible that Cavill doesn’t want to go down with the ship and is getting out before things get worse. Perhaps there are creative differences we don’t know about. Perhaps he will simply be too busy playing Superman in the newly-re-branded DCU.
Netflix is spinning this as “exciting news” but it’s actually the furthest thing from it. No matter how well Hemsworth does in the role, audiences will have a deeply difficult time accepting him as Geralt. It was already going to be a challenge to move from video game Geralt (or book Geralt) to a live-action actor, but Cavill did such a terrific job pretty much everyone was onboard after the first season.
Cavill also has shown a deep passion for this project and for the Witcher stories and games and has been a champion of fidelity to the source material. Without him involved, I am deeply concerned that the show will falter.
Frankly, Cavill leaving should either mean A) the end of the show or B) moving the story in a new direction with a new Witcher in the title role who isn’t Geralt. By all means, bring Hemsworth in to play a different Witcher with a different backstory and personality. This isn’t Doctor Who. You can’t just swap out Geralts every three seasons.
In any case, this is breaking news and I’m still wrapping my brain around it. But this has, in one fell swoop, pretty much crushed my hopes for the future of The Witcher on Netflix. Whatever Cavill’s true reasons for leaving, I can’t imagine this show going anywhere but downhill.
Interestingly, this also comes directly after a former producer on the show, Beau DeMayo, claimed that writers on The Witcher actively disliked the books and games.
“I’ve been on shows – namely Witcher – where some of the writers were not or actively disliked the books and games (even actively mocking the source material),” DeMayo explained. “It’s a recipe for disaster and bad morale. Fandom as a litmus test checks egos, and makes all the long nights worth it. You have to respect the work before you’re allowed to add to its legacy.”
Are these things connected? We’ll likely never know.
R.I.P. Netflix’s The Witcher. The final season with Cavill as Geralt of Rivia will air in Summer 2023. A spinoff show, The Witcher: Blood Origin, comes out on December 25th.
I guess this is one way to learn that the show has been renewed for another season.
Today, Netflix announced that The Witcher will be back for a fourth season. However, it wasn’t all good news, as the streamer also confirmed that Henry Cavill will not be returning for season 4. Instead, Liam Hemsworth will be the new monster slayer, Geralt of Rivia.
Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the popular Witcher books first started airing in 2019 and quickly exploded in popularity, with many praising Henry Cavill’s stoic but charming take on the white-haired witcher himself, Geralt. Since that first season, The Witcher has become a bonafide franchise for Netflix, leading to more seasons, anime prequels, movies, and even a child-friendly spin-off. But the star of the original series won’t be sticking around as the fantasy franchise grows.
In a tweet posted earlier today, Netflix confirmed that Cavill will be stepping away from the role after season three of the Witcher airs…sometime in the future. Starting in season four, Liam Hemsworth will be joining the “Witcher family” and will wear the white wig and carry the cool swords as Geralt moving forward.
“My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4,” said Cavill in a statement shared by Netflix.
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A gift for literally everybody. Gifts under $20, $10, and even $5. It’s Wish, the catch-all shop for all of the above.
“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,” continued Cavill, “Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving in and seeing what you can find.”
Hemsworth, a Witcher fan himself, also shared a statement about the surprising news, saying that he’s been a fan of Cavill’s take on the character for years and that he was “inspired” by his performance and what he brought to the character.
“I may have some big boots to fill, but I’m truly excited to be stepping into The Witcher world,” said Hemsworth.
The initial reaction online has been…not great! Many fans are confused and upset to see Cavill leave the role. And while it’s likely he’s hanging up the swords and the medallion to replace it with a red cape and tights as he returns to the DCEU film franchise as Superman, I assume many Witcher fans will be saddened to see the nerdy actor leave the popular show. But hey, with all that DC money he can probably build an even cooler PC!
