Fans Demand Netflix Bring Henry Cavill Back as Geralt in 'The Witcher'

At the end of October unexpectedly became knownthat Henry Cavill is leaving The Witcher. Geralt of Rivia in the fourth season will be played by Liam Hemsworth - but this change did not seem to suit the fans. On Change.org appeared a petition urging Netflix to bring Cavill back. At the time of publication, it has already collected 43,000 signatures.

The text accompanying the petition claims that Sapkowski himself approved Cavill, and as Viggo Mortensen became the face of Aragorn forever, Cavill should forever be the face of Geralt. According to fans, it wasn't Cavill's schedule, which became tighter due to his return to the role of Superman, that influenced the decision to replace Cavill, but the decision of Netflix executives.

There is no confirmation of these words, but the Redanian Intelligence edition leads completely opposite information. According to insiders, back in the summer of 2021, when the shooting of the second season of The Witcher was completed, but the project had not yet been renewed for the third, Cavill wanted to leave the project. His views on the image of Geralt and his place in the series did not coincide with the opinion of the producers, but then he decided to wait and consider the decision.

In September 2021, The Witcher was officially renewed for a third season, and in November it became known that Cavill was signed new contract: the actor will receive one million dollars per episode (versus 400 thousand per episode in previous seasons). Around the same time, the promotional tour for the second season started, and Cavill said in almost every interview that he would like to bring the image of Geralt closer to the book.

The third season was likely a short-term deal, and Netflix knew ahead of time that this would be the last time Cavill would star in The Witcher. It seems that technically the decision was still up to Cavill, who could not accept the authors' choice to move away from the book image of his hero.