ratings for the show’s fourth season were down sharply, with a 50% decline in viewership. Season 4 was the first without Henry Cavill and the first for Liam Hemsworth, which likely played a role in the audience decline.
I don’t have strong opinions one way or another about Liam Hemsworth’s acting chops, but the show ended for me when Henry Cavill quit over “creative differences.” When the famously nerdy star of a fantasy show quits after three seasons because the writers seem to have open contempt for the source material it’s probably time for the audience to bail too.
Exactly. Liam Hemsworth is perfectly fine, generally speaking, but when Henry Cavill decides to leave a project under such circumstances, I’m quitting too.
Apparently, 50% of the audience felt the same.
I kind of got the impression that he was a dick on set and they were happy to part ways. I don’t really know what Cavill’s criticisms were but slavish devotion to source material would make for a terrible adaptation. Probably not a popular view online but the books are not filmable as written.
Really depends. You can twist it around the other way too. If, as multiple sources have confided, they did have contempt for the source material it isn’t a stretch that they’d have no patience for Cavill’s criticisms. They would have viewed Cavill as a dick for being more loyal to the author’s vision. They certainly did put out that propaganda to save their own skins. And given how the quality of the show declined and viewership along with it, reality favors Cavill.
Just a lead actor constantly trying to overrule the EP and writers is probably sufficiently bad on-set behaviour, but I’ve read other things as well. It’s really only rumours anyway. Sapkowski seems totally fine with their adaptation. Plus, that Cavill dude hasn’t even played Blood and Wine? Fucking tourist! (that was a joke, relax)
I’m not exactly sure what “contempt” for the source material means here. There’s some weird shit in those books that was never going to be in any adaptation. Just two examples off the top of my head:
<weird shit>
Triss Marigold begging Geralt to fuck her while she’s shitting herself to death in a cart wasn’t ever gonna make the cut. It’s both gross and not really believable.
Geralt fucking a 16-year-old Shani to then have Phillipa owl-on-in to comment on how hottt 16-year-olds are and how much hotter Yennefer would be if she was underage… is a weird scene. A scene I doubt Cavill went to bat for.
Is not including those scenes “contempt” for the material?
Other criticism I often see online has to do with additions to the story. Like, “the elves didn’t do that in the books!” But the elves don’t really do anything. There are no scenes in the books that explain the conditions of the elves. The narrator just tells you about it. Having either a text crawl or narrator explaining things are both super lame in film. “Long, long ago on a Continent far, far…” You have to show, not tell. Is that contempt? The story as written is fine for a book, but just doesn’t work for film.
Or also “Yennefer didn’t do that in the books!” But:
<Yennefer>
Yennefer is barely in the books! Geralt mostly just thinks about her all the time. But thinking isn’t particularly cinematic and that character is important to the story. You want a great actor to portray her and your actors need shit to do. She can’t just be a thought bubble over Geralt’s head. In the third season (IIRC), Anya Chalotra would have one scene in the first episode, two brief scenes in the last episode (the first of which would be just pissing herself in a puddle), and spend the rest of the season as a jade statuette. What actor would agree to commit up to a decade of the most lucrative years of their career to your project if that’s the work you’re giving them? It doesn’t matter in the books because Yennefer isn’t under contract. And, as importantly, if she’s mostly absent in the show, the bond between her, Geralt, and Ciri is totally unearned and won’t make any sense to the audience.
Again, I don’t know Cavill’s specific criticisms, but so many complaints I’ve seen online are about deviations from things that wouldn’t translate to film. I think the book is written in a way that just doesn’t make it easily adaptable. Unlike, say, GRRM or James S.A. Corey who both (err… all three) seem very influenced by film such that their novels are almost laid out scene by scene. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were thinking about adaptations as they were writing. I don’t think Sapkowski shares that influence and if you tried to adapt it exactly, you’d make something bad.
Sapkowski seems totally fine with their adaptation.
I’m pretty sympathetic to the general point here, and I’ll even say that a lot of pretty shit (or at least slim) source material is getting adapted these days and I don’t fault TV writers one bit for not sticking to it (cough halo cough).
That said, IIRC Sapkowski sold the game rights for a very small one time payment and remains salty about it, so it’s maybe not surprising that he’s publicly favoring the Netflix adaptation.
I think anyone would be salty if they sold the rights for a $10K flat fee and had missed out on $16M in royalties (by Sapkowski’s estimate). He does seem to mostly blame himself though:
“I was stupid enough to sell them rights [to all of my novels],” he told Eurogamer. “They offered me a percentage of their profits. I said, ‘No, there will be no profit at all — give me all my money right now! The whole amount.’ It was stupid. I was stupid enough to leave everything in their hands because I didn’t believe in their success. But who could foresee their success? I couldn’t.”
I think he’s de-salted though. They settled and renegotiated a licensing agreement a few years ago. His relationship with CDPR seems fine now, even if he remains fully committed to grumpiness:
“The contracts between me and the game people are excellent right now. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Although CDPR’s Adam Badowski says he’s secretly a lovely dude:
“He’s a very intelligent guy,” said Badowski, “and as a writer, he created kind of a persona. In person, he’s a great guy. Very knowledgeable.” In fact, Badowski says he hangs out with Sapkowski regularly: “We are friends. I visit Andrzej regularly. We go for dinner, have great conversations.”
LOL, you came with receipts. Fair enough. :-)
because the writers seem to have open contempt for the source material
The Witcher is done, but Cavill has taken his experiences with shitty writers and nailed down rules that force the writers to respect the Warhammer 40K source material for the upcoming series.
“the most anticipated releases of the year”
For the four people still watching it…
I am a Witcher fan, liked the books and the game. But the Netflix series was terrible.
My wife didn’t read the books nor played the games, but she likes fantasy so she wanted to like that series, but didn’t.
It’s utterly dog shit. The fact they are still making it is the only disappointment.
I am a Witcher fan, liked the books and the game. But the Netflix series was terrible.
As someone who didn’t read the books, and only played the games after watching the show, I found seasons 1 and 2 pretty enjoyable, but season 3 was a bit “meh“. But after Henry Cavill left, I wasn’t gonna bother with it anymore.
They decided they could do better than the source material. They were wrong.
They decided they could do better than the source material. They were wrong.
This behavior in Hollywood is something I really don’t understand. Like I know there are egos out there that make stupid decisions.
But, the source material, no matter what we’re talking about, is what made millions of dollars. Not some untested ideas from hack writers. The source material is tested. It works. All you have to do to excel is to take that exact source material, and translate it to a TV series. That’s it.
D&D understood this (to a point), when they went to GRRM and pitched the Game of Thrones TV series. GRRM understood that Hollywood is full of these idiots, and tested them on their knowledge of the source material. When they passed, it got greenlit.
And then Hollywood acts all surprised when the show get high ratings. As soon as D&D was winging it and writing whatever crap they wanted, the whole show started to crack, until they rushed out that plot-hole-ridden, clichéd final season.
GRRM had the obvious advantage over a lot of other authors : he already worked for TV shows when he was younger and in different roles too.
I really think that gave him an edge and honestly, if it wasn’t for the last seasons being butchered, it would have been an incredibly good piece of tv show history with the sopranos and breaking bad for example. The first seasons were that good for me.
It will still be in tv History, but as a total waste. They destroyed the main plot, they destroyed main characters, logic with teleporting characters, they destroyed everything and betrayed a fantastic cast of actors too!
I don’t even want to think about that show now, I don’t even want to see any spin off. Fool me once etc… Just because two greedy bastards decided they were done with the show as they wanted to go to greener pastures. They got addicted to smelling their own farts is what it is…
Just because two greedy bastards decided they were done with the show as they wanted to go to greener pastures. They got addicted to smelling their own farts is what it is…
Ironically, their handling of Season 8 fucked up their future prospects.
Holy shit, this crap us still airing?
Gawd
I was thinking the same. THAT’S the show they keep on life support??
Perhaps this is a hot take, but this show was never particularly good. Its early success was more to do with Cavill lust and the mainstream success of The Witcher 3 than anything else. It’s no surprise interest has faded as The Witcher 3 has become increasingly irrelevant and forgotten as it has aged and newer, bigger games have taken its place. The Netflix adaptation was already losing viewers and performing poorly before Cavill left, and now that he’s gone it is lacking the major ingredients that made it a hit originally.
Fun fact: Next year a new DLC will be released for the Witcher 3.
I saw that when checking the release date of the original game. Crazy!
I started watching the season right after Henry Cavill left, and only got thru a couple eps. The new guy’s just not very compelling.
