Henry Cavill’s arc in The Witcher was one of the actor’s most celebrated roles in his career. The recognition and popularity he brought to the video games, Andrzej Sapkowski’s high fantasy novels, and the protagonist Geralt of Rivia, was unmatched due to his own star power, fame, and devotion to the franchise.
As such, it was not surprising to hear him announce an extensive 7-season plan with showrunner Lauren Hissrich for the series in 2021, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
However, circumstances have changed drastically in the 4 years since. Now, with Cavill no longer attached to the project and The Witcher itself suffering from a recast and a decline in storytelling, the Netflix series fails to fulfill its original plans for a long and illustrious legacy at the streamer.
What Caused Henry Cavill’s 7-Season Plan to Fail?
Back in 2021, Henry Cavill was quite adamant about following through with Lauren Hissrich’s vision of The Witcher running for seven seasons at least. He was entirely on board with the plan: “As long as we can keep telling great stories which honor [author Andrzej] Sapkowski’s work.”
That basic caveat was the only unbreakable law for Cavill to play Geralt and pour his heart and soul into The Witcher. However, the team behind the Netflix series swerved away from Sapkowski’s source material. Instead, they introduced new arcs, villains, and plot devices that worked entirely against Cavill’s code of honor and ethics.
For a loyalist like him, that would have been a great disrespect to the author’s vision. But even beyond that, The Witcher failed to land with the audience. The epic tone of grandeur in the first season was lost in the second, and fans struggled to find the story as engaging.
Inconsistent pacing, declining quality of writing, sloppy worldbuilding, and the general shift in direction to address the times’ sociopolitical agenda at the cost of Sapkowski’s vision not only contributed to The Witcher‘s downfall but also immense fan outrage when Cavill announced his exit after Season 3.
Cavill’s resignation and eventual replacement were the last straw for the fandom, who could not only accept Liam Hemsworth in his stead but felt the reverberating loss of a creative soul who was invested in a faithful adaptation of the series. Without his presence and guidance, The Witcher was doomed to a similar fate as a ship lost in a storm.
The Witcher’s 7-Season Plan Can Hurt Netflix Now More Than Ever
For those among the audience not familiar with the original novels and games that make The Witcher such a treasure in terms of lore and worldbuilding, a loyalist with in-depth knowledge of the source critiqued the series as follows (via The Comenian):
This show butchers The Witcher series on the same level that Game of Thrones season eight did for A Song of Ice and Fire… At every turn, the writers and producers of this show display the highest level of incompetence and lack of reading comprehension for these books… in their process of making their own take on this world, the writers have completely obliterated everything that makes it special.
If such strong feelings of revulsion, mistrust, and altogether hatred for the series persist on the part of the fan community, The Witcher has no scope for success beyond its current range, let alone survive for seven seasons.
In April 2024, amid the growing fan outrage and critical snubbing of the series for both its storytelling and its recast, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Netflix was calling off the series after 5 seasons. While once the show was received warmly by the fans as one of Netflix’s best productions, and became the highest-streamed series upon release, the drastic and frankly shocking decline must be studied by the streamer to realize what to avoid in the future.
Below is a list of actors who play series regular characters in The Witcher:
Are you familiar with the world of the Witcher beyond the Netflix series? If so, let us know what you think the show can benefit from in the coming 2 seasons.
The Witcher is available to stream on Netflix.
