The Witcher Showrunner Promises Season 3 Will be Closer to the Books
Since the first Season of The Witcher released more than three years ago, one of the biggest complaints from existing fans is that the Netflix adaptation does not adhere closely enough to the source material. The first two seasons took great liberties with the works of Andrzej Sapkowski, causing a lot of frustration among long-time fans. Fortunately, it seems that might be changing in the show's third season. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Lauren Hissrich talked about how Season 3 will be adapting quite a bit from the novel Time of Contempt.
"What is so interesting is that season 3, to me, is the closest thing that we've done as a one-to-one adaptation of the books," Hissrich told EW. "Obviously, we can't do every page, but Time of Contempt gave us so many big action events, plot points, defining character moments, huge reveals of a big bad. There's so much to do that we were able to stick really, really closely with the books."
The show's deviations often seemed to be a source of frustration for series star Henry Cavill. Cavill was a huge fan of the books before joining the series, and often fought to include more elements from them in the show. In Season 2, the actor actually snuck in dialogue from the books, despite the fact that it wasn't in the script. During a Polish interview with Marcin Zweirzchowski, Cavill said that he "did not feel like having long discussion about whether I could add this bit somewhere. So I just did it, said the words in front of the camera, and was ready to face the consequences."
Season 3 of The Witcher will be Cavill's last, with actor Liam Hemsworth set to take on the role in Season 4. Cavill has not provided an official reason for his departure, but there has been a lot of speculation that his frustrations with the adaptation's faithfulness might have become too much for the actor. If that truly is the case, hopefully Season 3 will offer the faithfulness to Sapkowski's works that Cavill has been seeking all this time.
Are you excited for The Witcher Season 3? Would you like to see a more faithful season? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter and on Hive at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!