As his swan song approaches, Geralt video game actor Doug Cockle shares his thoughts on why Henry Cavill is leaving The Witcher. Cavill’s exit from the Netflix fantasy show has been the talk of the town for the past two months, namely as it aligned with his Superman return in Black Adam’s post-credits, intended to see him back for far more projects in the DC Universe, including a potential Man of Steel 2. However, those plans were ultimately nixed by new DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran, leaving Cavill briefly without a path forward before partnering with Amazon to develop a Warhammer cinematic universe for Prime Video while The Witcher forges ahead with Liam Hemsworth taking over as Geralt of Rivia in season 4.
During a recent appearance at MCM Comic-Con, per Reddit user MAAAX547, Doug Cockle addressed the ongoing reports of Henry Cavill’s Witcher exit. The Geralt video game actor specifically took note of Cavill’s reported creative differences with the writers room on the Netflix show, praising Cavill’s love for the source material and acknowledging the show’s various changes.
How The Witcher Show Differs From The Books
Though critics have been generally favorable for both seasons of the show, fans of The Witcher books have proven largely critical of the Netflix series, particularly for the various changes made to Andrzej Sapkowski’s source material. One of the more egregious changes came in The Witcher season 2 when Freya Allan’s Ciri and Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer first meet and begin interacting, a dynamic those who followed both the novels and CD Projekt Red’s video games were looking forward to given their mother-daughter-like relationship. Instead, the show saw a more menacing take on their interactions as Yennefer only intended to sacrifice Ciri to the Deathless Mother in the hopes of regaining her magic, with Geralt losing his trust in who is supposed to be one of his biggest love interests.
Another major change from The Witcher books that has ruffled fans’ feathers has been the relationship between Geralt and the traveling bard Jaskier, also known as Dandelion in the fantasy novels. Though considered a close friend of Geralt in the books, The Witcher show sees the titular monster hunter frequently treating Jaskier with contempt, even putting him in dangerous situations without necessarily caring for whether he survives the situation. The Witcher season 2 did see some closer ties between the two characters, though in a season rife with many other book changes, it wasn’t seen as enough of a shift back towards the source material.
Will Future Witcher Seasons Fix These Changes?
Reports of Cavill’s creative differences on The Witcher regarding the changes from the source material came around the time former writer Beau DeMayo indicated that the show’s writers room actively disliked Sapkowski’s novels. Though it’s yet to be confirmed whether this factored into his departure from the series, as Cockle mentions, it’d be an understandable reason for his leaving considering how passionate he is about the novels and video games. But, with showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich promising that The Witcher season 3 will focus more on the books, a shift towards a more faithful adaptation of Sapkowski’s works could see the Netflix series survive its divisive Liam Hemsworth season 4 recasting.