As recently as this summer, The Witcher stood tall as one of Netflix’s most popular properties, with fans excited to see what the future held for the rapidly-expanding fantasy franchise. What a difference a few months makes, because the wheels have started to come off in fairly spectacular fashion.
The news that Henry Cavill would be departing as Geralt of Rivia after season 3 sent shockwaves through the fandom, which instantly transformed into bemusement and fury when Liam Hemsworth was announced as his replacement. Inevitably, campaigns and petitions were launched urging viewers to turn their backs on the show, with showrunner Lauren Hissrich coming under particular fire.
Prequel Blood Origin was supposed to stem the tide of backlash, but has instead become the streaming service’s worst-rated original series of all-time, thanks to Rotten Tomatoes scores of 35 and 12 percent being bestowed upon it by critics and audiences. A lot of Continent connoisseurs are ready to turn their backs on the series for good, so naturally, Hissrich revealed to Collider that Cavill’s upcoming final run of episodes could end up being split in two.
“We haven’t discussed that yet, but at this point I think what we see happening across all sort of streamers, I wouldn’t rule it out. I do think that, obviously, we don’t put anything out that we’re not incredibly proud of. So that dictates our entire launch date. And I think it’ll be interesting. Again, we have a way still a very long time, eight-ish months or so until Witcher season 3 comes out. So god willing, we get it all out at the same time. But who knows, we’ll see what happens.”
On a cynical level, releasing The Witcher‘s third season in two separate blocks could be a way to trick the algorithm and bump up the viewership figures, thus ensuring Hemsworth’s debut won’t be a one-and-done enterprise, because the Blood Origin negativity has instantly neutered the appeal of further spinoffs in the eyes of many.
We’re very interested to see how it fares, though, if only to discover if the disgruntled masses will back up their talk by shunning the swords-and-sorcery spectacular.
