Netflix has a big problem on their hands with The Witcher and Henry Cavill’s decision to leave the show after three seasons. A petition was made on Change.com that has garnered over 120,000 signatures.
Fans Want Henry Cavill to Return to The Witcher
The petition wants Netflix to “keep Henry Cavill as The Witcher and replace the writers instead.” Last week, Cavill shocked The Witcher fans by announcing that he is leaving the show and not returning for the fourth season. Fans began to speculate why Cavill left and came to the conclusion that he was forced to because of the direction the writers have taken the show.
While that may sound like a stretch at first, fans pointed out to Cavill’s love of Andrzej Sapkowski’s original works and saying that he planned to star in all seven seasons of the show. In season two, Cavill said in an interview that he had to fight for certain scenes and how his character Geralt the Witcher would behave.
A Change in Source Material
Fans also pointed out how season two deviates from the source material and speculated that Cavill was not happy since he is a big fan of the books. A week before Cavill’s announcement, a former writer of the show came out and said that some of the writers of the show “actively disliked” the source material. That moment seems to have broken the dam and bad news has kept on flowing.
The petition says “Henry [Cavill] isn’t leaving The Witcher because of Superman, Netflix executives have once again made a grave decision against delivering for their fans. The reason why The Witcher is such a popular show is the fans’ love of the source material of books and games, that are hated by and have actively been mocked by the writers and showrunner. Henry Cavill is one of those big fans, he knows all of it inside out and wanted to stay true to Sapkowski’s world, which is why Netflix wants to replace him.”
Netflix has let This Happen
The choice to leave the show was Cavill’s as far as we know. He may have been forced to leave because of the direction of the show but Netflix had no choice but to replace him with Liam Hemsworth since he is leaving. The petition wants Netflix to fire the writers and hire Cavill again but that seems like overhauling everything that they have done so far.
There is little hope of firing most of the writers that aren’t genuine fans of the source material. I did say that Netflix has to address this but they did not and it has snowballed into this. Now, Netflix has a show that won’t see all seven seasons at this rate and a fanbase that is irate.
I do not think this show this going to survive all of this chaos. Netflix has been stubborn and Cavill was a major reason why the show worked. With writers that don’t care about the source material, the show is going to fail. Season two was horrible for fans of the original books and video games and I can’t even imagine what season three is going to look like.
Conclusion
Cavill leaving is the best decision for him and maybe for all of us. The faster this ship sinks, the faster we can get a reboot that is honest to the source material. Deviating from that doesn’t make sense because the story that the book is trying is right there. There is no need to invent a witch and muddy a story that is great as it is.
The petition has no hope but its sheer popularity looks bad for Netflix. It has a lot of support and everyone seems to agree that without Cavill, the show is not going to be the same. Fans will be able to watch Cavill be the Witcher one last time in season three and they may not return after that. I know I won’t.