Though The Witcher Season 3, Vol. 1 debuted on June 29 for those with a Netflix subscription and got critical love for Henry Cavill and the main cast (but disappointed reviews for nearly everything else), the fantasy series is still under quite a cloud. The star announced back in October 2022 that the third season of the action-packed drama would be his last, with Liam Hemsworth taking over for Season 4 and beyond. Fans were so pissed that they started a petition to get Cavill back, but now some are not pleased about promos for Season 3 that throw The Hunger Games star “under the bus.”
What Are The Witcher Season 3 Promos That Have Fans Upset About Liam Hemsworth Being Thrown ‘Under The Bus’?
If you’ve been paying attention to fandom for this show, then you probably noticed that not only have the OG fans (who love the books the show is based on, and/or the video games which are based on the same source material) been incredibly disappointed (to put it mildly) with the series deviating from the original tales, but unbelievably angry that more wasn’t done to keep Cavill as Geralt of Rivia. Some viewers are now upset about the ads for The Witcher Season 3, which definitely appear to dismiss incoming star Hemsworth:
I can’t believe this is real, holy shit A) this has to mean initial watch numbers are badB) this is absolutely throwing Liam Hemsworth straight under a bus https://t.co/bIMRwbDrJgJuly 4, 2023
I mean…egad, right? I did actually see these photos online over The Witcher’s release weekend, and, much like the commenter here, assumed it was just a fan angry about it being Cavill’s final season messing around. That was, until I saw that the show’s official Twitter account posted them, and I was, you know, incredibly surprised that they’d go this far.
Many in the comments on this post are talking about Cavill, but there are also several people who do not like the seemingly apparent Hemsworth diss in the promos at all:
- “Oh my god ha ha. This is them basically admitting ‘yeah, we know Liam being Gerald is gonna make the show less popular.’ Poor guy”
- “There is just no class when it comes to things.”
- “This is just a signal for a disaster that already happened.”
- “Just really in bad taste. Why throw Liam under the bus like that and unfair to Henry as well.”
As far as I can see, the only way these ads might be “unfair” to our outgoing lead is that they take the focus off of his performance in Season 3 (he literally made me tear up during one scene in the third episode of the season), but I can totally get where these fans are coming from with everything else they’ve said.
The creatives behind the show have been doing a lot of work over the past several months to convince audiences to stick around, because as the first comment noted, they realize the loss of Cavill has made people far less likely to keep watching. Shortly after the news of his departure came out, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich said that it was “big news” for everyone on the series, as well, and then asked that viewers “please come back for The Witcher Season 3 so that we can continue to do this,” which seems like a pretty obvious acknowledgment that “a disaster” had indeed “already happened.”
Everyone who watches this show is thinking about the day when it’ll return for Season 4 and Hemsworth will be our new White Wolf, and while a few (like me) are probably simply eager to see how the portrayal will be different, many have admitted to already being uninvested. Several fans commented that they stopped paying attention to news of the show when hearing Cavill wouldn’t be back, and literally didn’t even realize the third season was now available, which those at Netflix must have known was a possibility.
So, why focus on the thing that has people pissed off and beg them to watch at least one more season? And why be so dismissive of Hemsworth? I’m guessing he’s really going to try his level best to carry the role under some truly less than positive circumstances. The guy is already fighting against the tide of extreme fan apathy/disappointment; emphasizing the fact that so few even want to bother with his Geralt really does appear unnecessary, at the very least.
The series has already been renewed for Season 4, with the casting director telling Deadline that Season 5 has also been given the go-ahead, but if the streamer has to do this kind of work to attempt keeping people around for Season 3 (Which totally still has Cavill starring!), one does wonder if that will hold.
