When Henry Cavill was announced to be departing The Witcher after the end of season 3 – with Liam Hemsworth already waiting in the wings as his replacement – a lot of fans vowed to turn their back on the series forevermore.
Theoretically, that could have been a hammer blow for Netflix when season 4 was already confirmed, not to mention tentative plans for a fifth run of episodes, a second spin-off having recently wrapped shooting, and the ongoing plans to expand the animated side of the franchise, too.
While it’s hard to quantify given that the third outing for Geralt of Rivia only dropped five of its eight episodes last week, crunching the numbers does indicate that less people are watching The Witcher than ever before, so maybe the calls to boycott the series really are having an effect.
In its first week on the Top 10 rankings data, season 3 of The Witcher accrued 73 million hours viewed through its first four days of being available, which equates to 14.6 million hours per episode in the interest of fairness.
When season 2 dropped on December 17 of 2021, it nabbed 142.43 million hours across its own first four days, averaging out at 17.8 million hours per episode – factoring in that all eight arrived all at once. It’s not a massive plummet, but it’s a noticeable one nonetheless that seems to be pointing in the direction of The Witcher not quite being the appointment viewing it once was.
We’ll have to wait until Volume 2 premieres before getting the full picture, but perhaps the boycotters have kept their word after all.
