The Witcher is an extraordinary high fantasy series born out of an incredible literary source penned by a Polish author and novelist, Andrzej Sapkowksi. It was this writer’s dream and his creation that made Henry Cavill fall in love with the work and later gun so vocally for its live-action adaptation. So when the reports began to emerge about the writers of the series (which Cavill made happen) being unhappy with the original work (from which the show has been adapted), it was not only an ostentatious claim but also a very desecration of Sapkowski’s legacy.
The venomous hatred that soon followed after Season 2’s failure and Henry Cavill’s exit has ever since found every opportunity to lash out against the writers of The Witcher and it hardly seems to be dying down any time soon.
The Witcher Fans Left Seething After Henry Cavill Exit Drama
There were words kept and promises broken, plans made and hopes dashed, and a bit of Cavill all over the place with his finger in every pie. The actor started off as Charles Brandon on The Tudors and served as a princely-looking Duke of Suffolk. His next tenure in Hollywood marked a promotion to a god-hero in Zack Snyder’s DCEU trilogy and was quickly followed by an arguably more beloved adaptation of The Witcher.
Fans, already obsessed with Henry Cavill by then, had welcomed the talented actor with looks to serve the equally worthy cause to join the gaming-to-live-action genre because of his first-hand knowledge about the subject and as such, being able to do justice to the source unlike so many others before him (re: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation).
This also happened to be one of the non-negotiable conditions for Henry Cavill before onboarding with The Witcher team at Netflix – i.e. the writers couldn’t drastically manipulate the source material out of sheer creative liberty. That condition was singed into ashes when Season 2 introduced an all-new villain [Voleith Meir] out of thin air. Season 2 also failed to make it work and was a critical flop.
So when Cavill’s neurotic pleas for the team’s writers to stay on track went unheard, it would of course be an understatement to call his exit a resignation. In the collective imagination, the scenario presents itself as more like a storming off from the sets of The Witcher as soon as Season 3 was done filming.
Theorists Analyze Henry Cavill’s Departure in New Light
The Henry Cavill fan club has been a non-stop driving force of optimism and an institution of defense for the actor’s work and contribution to the industry over the years. His sheer dedication paired with his incredible eye for making a project successful has been viewed as a rare quality in the modern era of film and television. And as a consequence, the little faith that was ignited after Netflix’s The Witcher and the amount of blood and sweat that was poured into manifesting that dream into a reality by Cavill has been splintered once more.
Especially when the popularity of the show and the innumerable spin-offs that were born because of the formative steps taken by the actor and his team are factored into the equation, the truth of Cavill’s exit becomes harder to bear. An incisive look into the matter makes it look more like a betrayal than anything else. “His departure is beginning to make even more sense” – theorists have claimed in the aftermath of the drama.
The Witcher is available for streaming on Netflix.
Source: Recap Junkie
