Henry Cavill Announces Exit from Witcher Series

With Henry Cavill promising more Superman content down the line, it looks like he’ll have to be giving up one of his more celebrated roles.

In an official announcement on his IG, Cavill has confirmed that he will be leaving Netflix’s The Witcher series with Liam Hemsworth taking over as Geralt of Rivia. Here’s the post:

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A post shared by Henry Cavill (@henrycavill)

While fans thought that Cavill would be able to keep the Geralt and Superman role at the same time, it seems that his exit could have something to do with what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s no mystery that Cavill was a huge Witcher fan, and was said to have fought really hard to be cast as Geralt in the series, but word has come out that the writers’ room for the show has a lack of interest in the source material. This issue became more apparent when former writer Beau DeMayo revealed on his IG (via The Direct) that some writers on the Witcher series had no love for the source material. Talking about his upcoming X-Men ’97 revival, he says:

“For sure, in fall of 2020, Marvel’s head of streaming asked me to develop a take to revive this show. From there I pitched it out, was hired. My LP was the first hire and he brought along all the amazing talent that followed. My general rule was you HAD to be a fan. No questions.

I’ve been on show – namely Witcher – where some of the writers were not or actively disliked the books and games (even actively mocking the source material.) 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.”

We don’t know exactly what Cavill’s reasons are, but fans online have been convinced that it could have something to do with the way the series was being written.

Losing Cavill is definitely going to be a huge blow for the series, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Maybe they’ll start focusing the story on Ciri? But that’s just my guess. If you ask me, they should just do a hard reboot on the whole thing like they did with Hellboy. Maybe a time jump will work?

No release date has been announced for The Witcher Season 4.