Last week, it was announced Liam Hemsworth would be taking over the role of Geralt from Superman actor Henry Cavill for the fourth season of Netflix’s The Witcher adaptation.
But it turns out he was almost cast as Geralt of Rivia in 2018 when the role was first being cast.
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According to a report by redanianintelligence, Hemsworth was actually a frontrunner for the part before the role ultimately went to Cavill.
As such, sources state the casting process this time around was very quick, with it being implied the producers went back to their original audition tapes before settling upon Hemsworth as the replacement Geralt of Rivia.
This was all reportedly done during the latter part of summer 2022, during season three’s production.
However, despite the producers’ enthusiasm for Hemsworth, many Witcher fans are less enamoured with the news of this recasting. In fact, chugging along confidently in the background, a petition to get Cavill back into the role on Change.org is on the cusp of becoming one of the site’s most prolific ever.
At the time of writing, the “Netflix: You MUST keep Henry Cavill as The Witcher and replace the writers instead” petition already has 133,966 signatures (although given how quickly the signitures were coming in, I am sure it is now more than that).
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If this petition makes it to 150,000 signatures, it will become one of the top signed petitions on Change.org.
While Cavill has not spoken further about his decision to step back from the role of Geralt, many have surmised he was not happy with the direction the show was going, with the production team drifting too far from the literary source material.
In the past, the actor openly expressed his desire to make his version of Geralt as true to the books as possible, with his co-star Freya Allan (who plays Ciri) even referring to him as a “Witcher bible”.
In an interview with Fortress of Solitude ahead of the show’s second season, Allan explained, “We’ll be doing a scene and [Cavill will] be like ‘I think we should use this line from page 253 of Blood of Elves,’ and I’m like how does this dude know all this stuff?”
There’s no way @witchernetflix didn’t see this coming. They knew how Henry felt, he was open about it. And they decided they didn’t care. pic.twitter.com/IkATFy1wnu
— Kaer Moron ️️ (@IsaAfterDark) October 29, 2022
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On his decision to leave the show now, Cavill released the following statement with his fans:
“My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4.”
“In my stead, the fantastic Mr. Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf. As with the greatest of literary characters, I pass the torch with reverence for the time spent embodying Geralt and enthusiasm to see Liam’s take on this most fascinating and nuanced of men. Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving in and seeing what you can find.”
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Meanwhile, The Witcher spin-off Blood Origin, which explores the creation of the first prototype Witcher, launches on Netflix 25th December, with The Witcher Season three due out summer 2023.
