Will ‘The Witcher’ Change From Henry Cavill To Liam Hemsworth Be Flawless, As Netflix Claims?

As everyone now knows, Henry Cavill is leaving The Witcher after its upcoming third season, which drops its first episodes on Netflix this weekend, with a second part landing in July.

Cavill is out, though his reasons for leaving have never been made public. It seems obvious—though, again, unconfirmed—that he and the show’s writers and producers had irreconcilable creative differences. Perhaps the allure of Superman was too strong, or he was already eyeing the Warhammer 40,000 show, which he will have far more creative control on. Whatever the case, Cavill is out (more’s the pity) and Liam Hemsworth is now in the unenviable position of taking over as Geralt of Rivia in Season 4 and beyond.

In a recent interview, The Witcher executive producer Tomek Baginski tries to assuage fan fears over this massive recasting. The transition between Cavill and Hemsworth will be “flawless” according to Baginski.

Yes, and pigs can fly and I am a billionaire and gravity is a lie told by the Illuminati to control the masses.

“We have a very, very good plan to introduce our new Geralt and our new vision for Geralt with Liam,” said Baginski.

“Not going deeply into those ideas because this will be a huge spoiler, [but] it’s also very, very close to the meta ideas which are deeply embedded in the books, especially in book five.”

Over at Eurogamer, Ed Nightingale (Ed, are you a secret member of PADRE???) speculates:

Baginski appears to be referring to the events of author Andrzej Sapkowski’s fifth novel in the series: The Lady of the Lake.

By this point, Ciri has developed inter-dimensional powers (as fans of The Witcher 3 will be aware) and this novel is heavily inspired by the story of King Arthur. At the novel’s end, Geralt and Yennefer are transported to an unknown location, hinted to be Avalon of Arthurian legend.

This sort of dimension hopping certainly leaves the narrative open for a new Geralt to be found, and could well be the “meta ideas” Baginski has referred to.

This is an interesting theory, but it does not assuage my fears or my doubts. I do not think a multiversal explanation will be satisfying to many fans. The trick is that Geralt is the main character. He’s central to everything. Ciri might be the most important character for many reasons, but Geralt is the glue that holds the whole thing together, and now we’re replacing the actor who has basically defined the Witcher on TV. Sure, we survived the change from video game to television, but this is different. (I still wish we had an animated Witcher show, by the way, with the game voice actors involved).

“It’s very lore accurate,” Baginski also notes. “It’s very close to what was set out in the books and I think this change will be quite flawless.

“But at the same time it will be a new Geralt, it will be a new face for this character and I think it will also be very, very exciting to see.”

This feels like damage control or just your run-of-the-mill PR. “Oh this really unfortunate bad thing has happened but actually, don’t you see, it’s very exciting.”

That is not the word I would use to describe this situation, but I do wish Hemsworth all the best. This is not going to be an easy sell, and he’s right at the center of it for better or worse.

We shall see.

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