For fans of The Witcher, the subject of recasting of Geralt of Rivia from Henry Cavill to Liam Hemsworth will likely start a tavern brawl.
And now, there’s a visual to fuel the fire, with Netflix dropping a first look at Hemsworth as the titular Witcher. It’s a quick peek, but it’s been enough to get the internet talking again.
On Wednesday, Netflix dropped a pretty short teaser of Hemsworth as he’ll appear in Season 4 of The Witcher. The clip simply shows Geralt from behind, then moves closer where we can see it’s no longer Cavill in the silver wig.
You can watch it here:
The news of Cavill’s departure from the show, announced in November 2022, has spurred pretty emotional reactions from viewers. The lead of Netflix’s adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books, who had been successfully fine-tuning his version of the beloved character since 2019, Cavill finished up his run as Geralt in Season 3.
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Following the semi-reveal of Hemsworth wearing Geralt’s signature silver hair, double-handed sword, and leather armor, fans inevitably flocked to social media to give their two cents.
On TikTok, @yourTVgirl posted a solid explainer on Hemsworth’s early shortlisting with the casting team on The Witcher, and @pisceswithasideoffries examined Cavill’s star power impact on whether people will return to watch the show or not.
On X (formerly Twitter), reactions mainly seemed targeted at the show’s writing rather than the recasting (although there were plenty of staunch Cavill fans too).
Netflix began production of The Witcher Season 4 in April and shared sneak peeks of Hemsworth and the cast together at a table read.
The streamer also announced the series will end with Season 5, which is being shot at the same time as the coming season. Seasons 4 and 5 will adapt the rest of Sapkowski’s books Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow, and Lady of the Lake.
“It is with huge pride that we begin shooting our penultimate season of The Witcher with a stellar cast, including some exciting new additions, led by Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia,” showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to be able to bring Andrzej Sapkowski’s books to an epic and satisfying conclusion. It wouldn’t be our show if we didn’t push our family of characters to their absolute limit — stay tuned to see how the story ends.”
