As his final performance as Geralt approaches, video game actor Doug Cockle reflects on Henry Cavill’s decision to leave The Witcher. For the past two months, speculation has centred on Henry Cavill’s departure from the Netflix fantasy series, especially in light of his Superman return in Black Adam’s post-credits.
Which was designed to set up his return for many more projects in the DC Universe, possibly including a Man of Steel 2. However, new DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran ultimately scrapped those plans, leaving Cavill temporarily without a way forward before teaming up with Amazon to develop a Warhammer cinematic universe for Prime Video. Meanwhile, The Witcher continues with Liam Hemsworth replacing Geralt of Rivia in season 4.
Reddit user MAAAX547 claims that Doug Cockle addressed rumours of Henry Cavill leaving the role of the Witcher at his recent appearance at MCM Comic-Con. The actor who plays Geralt in the video games made a point of mentioning Henry Cavill’s rumored creative disputes with the writers room on the Netflix programme, while also applauding Cavill’s devotion to the source material and approving of the show’s numerous adaptations. Listen to what Cockle had to say, and watch his full conversation, down below:
How The Witcher Show Differs From The Books?
Despite the show’s generally positive reception from critics, fans of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher novels have been highly critical of the Netflix adaptation. Fans of the novels and CD Projekt Red’s computer games were looking forward to the mother-daughter dynamic between Freya Allan’s Ciri and Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer, but it did not happen until season 2 of The Witcher.
Instead, the programme presented a more sinister interpretation of their interactions, with Yennefer merely wanting to sacrifice Ciri to the Deathless Mother in order to retrieve her power and Geralt losing faith in the woman who is supposed to be one of his greatest loves.
I finished the witcher blood origin and all I can say is that I need more of her immediately pic.twitter.com/PO7Wh2Y5fm
— shika ♡ (@shikadraws) December 25, 2022
The connection between Geralt and the wandering bard Jaskier, or Dandelion in The Witcher books, has also been a point of contention among fans of the fantasy series. Despite Jaskier’s status as Geralt’s close friend in the books, the titular monster hunter treats Jaskier with disdain in The Witcher TV series.
Often putting him in perilous circumstances without worrying about his safety. Season 2 of The Witcher saw a tightening of links between the two protagonists, but in a season full of other deviations from the books, this wasn’t viewed as enough of a change to bring the show back in line with its inspiration.
Will Future Witcher Seasons Fix These Changes?
It was around the time that former writer Beau DeMayo revealed that the show’s writers room actively despised Sapkowski’s novels that rumours began to circulate about creative conflicts between Cavill and the showrunners on The Witcher regarding the alterations from the original material.
‘THE WITCHER’ Season 3 may be split in 2 parts.
(Via: https://t.co/kHlOsQ4iYV) pic.twitter.com/fBbMmaK9PI
— The Hollywood Handle (@hollywoodhandle) December 31, 2022
Although it has not been established whether or not this was a factor in his departure from the series, as Cockle points out, it would be logical given his enthusiasm for the novels and video games.
But with showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich promising a more authentic adaptation of Sapkowski’s works, The Witcher on Netflix may survive the controversial season 4 recasting of Liam Hemsworth.
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