Netflix Makes Embarrassing Mistake Listing Henry Cavill As Geralt In The Witcher Season 4
Almost all fans tuned out of The Witcher the moment Henry Cavill left the show. Netflix is trying and struggling to keep it going, nonetheless, but even on their own website, they made the mistake of listing Cavill as the lead character Geralt for Season 4.
Henry Cavill left “The Witcher” after Season 3 mainly due to creative differences with the show’s writers and producers about the direction of the story and how closely the adaptation should stick to the original books and games. Cavill, a dedicated fan of the source material, reportedly wanted the show to stay faithful to Andrzej Sapkowski’s books and CD Projekt Red’s games, while some of the writing team preferred to take the story in new directions.
Showrunner Lauren Hissrich also indicated that the decision was mutual, noting that Cavill had “aspirations for other roles” he wanted to pursue and that the show did not want to hold back someone who wanted to move on to different projects. Around the time of his departure, Cavill was briefly set to return as Superman in the DCEU and later became attached to other major franchises like Amazon’s Warhammer 40,000 and a new Highlander film.
While there were no official statements blaming a single reason, the departure is most often attributed to both his desire for loyalty to the source material and his wish to take on new work, making it a blend of creative and career motivations.
Netflix decided to recast the role of Geralt of Rivia with Liam Hemsworth for Season 4, who has committed to playing the role for the final two seasons of the series. This marks an odd case of a major cast member getting replaced and having a new person play the role, which creates continuity issues for fans, but it’s not unheard of either in the streaming era, as Amazon Prime’s Wheel of Time replaced Mat Cauthon after the original actor Barney Harris, left during season 1. Afterward, he’s played by Donal Finn.
In both instances, it creates a cringy scenario for fans as it’s hard to get back into something with such a drastic change. While many shows dealing with this replace characters entirely, like was done with Commander Sinclair for Babylon 5 when he left, then replaced by Bruce Boxleitner as Captain Sheridan, when dealing with an established IP, the characters are so central to the story it can’t be done.
Netflix, apparently, wishes Cavill would be back as well. On their official website promoting Season 4 they mistakenly posted listing hm as Geralt.
Fans mocked the situation roundly on X, and Netflix appears to have edited and replaced the listing after the hiccup:
Regardless, this is what fans would have wanted for The Witcher, and many are speculating Netflix would have rather had Henry Cavill in the role as well.
Will you be watching The Witcher without Henry Cavill?
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Something tells me this was just a legitimate mistake. They have already in existence marketing material they've used for 3 season and so I can see something like this happening. I doubt it was any intentional effort to try and trick fans b/c at best it would work for 1 episode and would just further anger those already upset with how the feminist showrunners have feminized and destroyed the IP.