Henry Cavill Reportedly Tried To Leave The Witcher After Season 2
They say you should always quit while you're ahead, and if the latest rumours are to be believed, Henry Cavill tried to do just that on The Witcher. As The Hunger Games' Liam Hemsworth takes over for the recently confirmed Season 4, it means Henry Cavill is done playing Geralt of Rivia.
If being part of the Hollywood glitterati playing Superman in the DCEU wasn't already enough, Cavill shocked us all in 2018 when the many fan castings for him to play Geralt in The Witcher came true. Sadly, Cavill's love of the source material might've got in the way, and by the sounds of it, his relationship with the Netflix series seems to have soured more recently.
Did Henry Cavill Try To Leave The Witcher After Season 2?
It's all speculation on why Cavill stepped down as the White Wolf right now, but with each day, more information is coming out. The star himself has denied he's been cast in House of the Dragon Season 2 - which seemingly takes that one off the board.
According to reliable The Witcher source Redanian Intelligence, Cavill was trying to leave the fantasy series after 2021's Season 2. The site has traced things back to this exact point, where it heard Cavill and producers "weren't seeing eye to eye." There was an apparent report of a recast, but as it was written off as speculation, Redanian Intelligence didn't report it.
At this point, Season 2 was in post-production and Season 3 hadn't yet been given the green light from Netflix. If this is true, it would've been a perfect time for Cavill to duck out. Jump forward to the gap between Season 3 and Season 4, it sounds like history is repeating itself.
Did Henry Cavill Fall Out With The Witcher Team?
If you look back at Cavill's words, there here been plenty of signs about a seemingly fractious relationship between him and those holding the reins to Roach. It's no secret that he pushed for a more book-accurate Geralt - wanting him to be more of a philosopher. At one point, he said the following: "The toughest part for me was finding that balance between the showrunners' vision and my love for the books, and trying to bring that Geralt to the showrunners' vision. It’s about treading a fine line there. It's the showrunners' story and so it's an adaptation."
There's a seemingly damning snippet just days before he officially left Geralt behind. On October 27, Cavill told the Happy Sad Confused podcast, "It's also important to know that if you realise you're doing the wrong thing, that’s when you stop doing the wrong thing. You don’t just keep going just because, because that leads down a dark path." Tie this together with claims from ex-producer Beau DeMayo that writers no love for Andrzej Sapkowski's books, and it paints a much bigger picture of why Cavill has waved goodbye to Geralt.