The past couple of months have been fairly tumultuous for The Witcher star Henry Cavill as he announced his return as Superman in the DCEU and that he would also be leaving his lead role as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s The Witcher just to lose Superman again in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s restructuring of DC films.
Now Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has spoken up on Cavill’s looming exit with Entertainment Weekly, teasing that he has a “heroic sendoff” to his time as Geralt before Liam Hemsworth assumes the role for season four.
The third season is set to premiere on Netflix sometime in summer 2023 rather than The Witcher‘s winter placement for its previous two seasons. It will adapt more of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher novel Blood of Elves as well as its sequel Time of Contempt. Though Cavill will be departing, Hissrich has said fans will be pleased with where he leaves his role as Geralt abandons his position of neutrality and is willing to go through anyone to keep Ciri safe.
“Henry has given so much to the show and so we want to honor that appropriately,” Hissrich said. “What is so interesting is that season 3, to me, is the closest thing that we’ve done as a one-to-one adaptation of the books. Obviously, we can’t do every page, but Time of Contempt gave us so many big action events, plot points, defining character moments, huge reveals of a big bad. There’s so much to do that we were able to stick really, really closely with the books.
“Geralt’s big turn is about giving up neutrality and doing anything that he has to do to get to Ciri. And to me, it’s the most heroic sendoff that we could have, even though it wasn’t written to be that. Geralt has a new mission in mind when we come back to him in season 4. He’s a slightly different Geralt than we expected. Now, by the way, that’s an understatement.”
While Cavill has left the role of Geralt and lost out on Superman, he recently announced he will star in and produce a Warhammer 40K series for Amazon and will appear next in Matthew Vaughn’s spy film Argylle. He is also attached to star in a Highlander reboot, though there has not been news on that project in a while.
What do you think of Hissrich’s thoughts? Are you glad Cavill will have a big heroic moment before he exits? Are you upset he is still leaving The Witcher? Let us know on our social channels at @flickeringmyth…
As monarchs, mages, and beasts of the Continent compete to capture her, Geralt takes Ciri of Cintra into hiding, determined to protect his newly-reunited family against those who threaten to destroy it. Entrusted with Ciri’s magical training, Yennefer leads them to the protected fortress of Aretuza, where she hopes to discover more about the girl’s untapped powers; instead, they discover they’ve landed in a battlefield of political corruption, dark magic, and treachery. They must fight back, put everything on the line — or risk losing each other forever.
The Witcher features a cast that includes Henry Cavill, Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, Joey Batey, MyAnna Buring, Tom Canton, Jeremy Crawford, Eamon Farren, Mahesh Jadu, Terence Maynard, Lars Mikkelsen, Mimî M Khayisa, Royce Pierreson, Wilson Mbomio, Anna Shaffer, Therica Wilson-Read, Cassie Clare, Mecia Simson, Graham McTavish, Bart Edwards, Simon Callow, Liz Carr, Ed Birch, Kaine Zajaz, Meng’er Zhang, Robbie Amell, Hugh Skinner and Christelle Elwin.
The first two seasons of The Witcher are available to stream now on Netflix.
Ricky Church – Follow me on Twitter for more movie news and nerd talk.
