Following the conclusion of Season 3 next summer, Henry Cavill will no longer be playing Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s The Witcher series. Replacing Henry Cavill in Season 4 and beyond will be Liam Hemsworth. As you would expect, this news hasn’t sat well with many fans, and not because of the appointment of Hemsworth, but because of how much the show stands to lose with Cavill leaving. Many agree that Cavill is the best part of the show, and not just because he’s the most talented actor on the set, but because his passion for the character and the series bleeds through his performance. He’s the perfect Geralt, and fans aren’t happy he’s leaving the role behind.
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According to various reports, Cavill’s departure isn’t as amicable as the announcement from Netflix suggests. Cavill reportedly wanted to leave the production behind as early as Season 2 due to butting heads with the show’s producers and writers over the depiction of Geralt and faithfully adhering to the source material. In other word, it’s not surprising that fans don’t just want Cavill back, but want the show’s writers replaced. Of course, not all fans desire this, but a petition on Change.org nearing 200,000 signatures suggests many fans do.
“Henry isn’t leaving The Witcher because of Superman, Netflix executives have once again made a grave decision against delivering for their fans,” reads the petition. “The reason why The Witcher is such a popular show is the fans’ love of the source material of books and games, that are hated by and have actively been mocked by the writers and showrunner. Henry Cavill is one of those big fans, he knows all of it inside out and wanted to stay true to Sapkowski’s world, which is why Netflix wants to replace him.
The petition continues “Let us show them in pure numbers (and thus lost money, because that’s all they really care about) that none of us Witcher fans will stand with them and will abandon the show (and potentially our subscriptions) after The Witcher season 3 is concluded. Netflix can only exist because all of us pay them monthly to produce content that is entertaining for us, unfortunately all public information points towards a production team making decisions that are completely opposite to the fans’ – our – interests. We already had to suffer through the disaster that was the end of Game of Thrones – NETFLIX don’t repeat the exact same mistake of holding onto writers and showrunners that believe themselves to be superior to the actual creator of the stories that made them successful.”
None of the implicated parties have responded to the petition, which was created a week ago and is already one of the most popular petitions on the site.
