Soon, after over a two-year wait, fans who are eager to step back into the world of Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer will be able to, when The Witcher Season 4 comes to the 2025 TV schedule. Those with a Netflix subscription were shocked and even angered in late 2022 when star Henry Cavill departed and handed the reins over to Liam Hemsworth, who has largely remained quiet on what it’s been like to take over the role. With the new season on the horizon, though, he's opened up about the “noise” that came after he signed up to portray Geralt, but I really don’t know if Season 4 is going to help that issue or not.
What Did Liam Hemsworth Say About Fan Response To Him Taking Over The Witcher From Henry Cavill?
Whether you’re a fan of The Witcher video games or books who’s watched the once incredibly popular fantasy series or not, you likely remember what happened when the star of Seasons 1-3, Henry Cavill, announced he was leaving. There had already been many rumors about the Superman actor not being happy with the creative direction of the drama, and fans who loved his portrayal of the White Wolf were none too pleased (yes, that’s putting it in extremely mild terms) that he’d decided to leave the show.
As we look forward to the October 30 premiere of the fourth season (the first of two with the new star which will round out the series), Liam Hemsworth spoke to Entertainment Weekly about taking over as Geralt and noted that his announcement as the new lead was a bit of a distracting time. The Hunger Games star said:
There was quite a bit of noise and I had to put that aside. It started to become a distraction. I dealt with that sort of thing in the past a lot and, you know, at the end of the day, I love making movies and I love telling stories and acting. I just don't want any of that to affect my way of telling the story that I'm trying to tell. I jumped off social media and the internet most of last year.
I think calling the response to his casting “noise” is probably fair, seeing as how while fans were absolutely pissed off about the casting change, they didn’t seem to hold it against Hemsworth or his predecessor, but the showrunner and writers who’d been crafting the show. They were seen as making creative choices that tinkered too much with the story set forth in Andrzej Sapkowski’s books, which made it hard for Cavill (a loud and devoted member of the tale’s fanbase) to soldier on.
In fact, fans have even come to the Expendables 2 star’s defense when it comes to his casting. When 2023 promos for the third season proudly declared, “Yes, he’s still Geralt in Season 3” (meaning Cavill) many online were pissed that the show appeared to actively throw Hemsworth “under a bus.” So, even though co-star Freya Allan has noted that their “fanbase can be attacky,” that mostly hasn’t been the case with Hemsworth specifically…so far.
Here’s Why I Don’t Know If The Witcher Season 4 Premiere Will Help The ‘Noise’ Or Hurt
Look, I’m a fan of The Witcher who didn’t previously have any attachment to the source material. I never read the books or played the video games, so I was free to watch the series without any real expectations of anything other than being entertained. I do understand, however, that it’s really hard to not have lots of expectations when an IP you love is adapted into another form, and I’ve also had some issues with what I saw on screen, whether those problems crossed over with long-time fans’ thoughts or not.
Here’s the thing; right now talk of The Witcher is pretty flat, and it has been since Season 3 wrapped a little over two years ago. For the most part people got their anger out right after news of the Cavillworth switch, they peeped some of the third season and slowly bounced away more and more as those episodes rolled on. Fans who’ve decided that they are done with the show are likely committed to that, so they don’t feel much need to discuss it anymore. Hence, the “noise” and “distraction” has died way down.
But, as I see it, one of two things will happen when Season 4 hits Netflix: either negative talk of the series will ramp up again (let’s be real, folks like to pile on) or word of mouth will stay at basically the level it is now because hardly anyone will give the new Geralt a shot. Either way, that’s not good for the show, as news about it will be negative.
Obviously, it’s not impossible that people will check it out and actually have mostly positive thoughts about what they see, but with Season 5 already being set as the last one, I think those who are still quietly seething about the leading man swap will have even fewer reasons to give the series a shot, meaning that a once very strong performer for the streamer could die a cold, lonely death when it all comes to an end in 2026.
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