There’s a new rumor percolating around the beleaguered Netflix fantasy series The Witcher: After the devastating departure of Henry Cavill as the series’ beloved star, in addition to the frequent liberties the show’s writers have taken with the source material, the end of the series is “very likely” in sight. At least, that’s according to an anonymous inside source who spoke with the site Redanian Intelligence, which has a solid track record in terms of releasing scooplets about the show.
“There’s no official confirmation for this yet, but we’ve been hearing recently that, yes, Season 5 is very likely the final season of The Witcher on Netflix,” the site claimed, based on its inside source. If that’s true, the site continues, it also suggests that the upcoming fourth and fifth seasons will be based on the following books from Andrzej Sapkowski (whose Witcher book series is the basis for the show): Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow, and The Lady of the Lake.
Where does The Witcher go from here?
Ending The Witcher with Season 5 would also mean viewers only get two seasons with Liam Hemsworth as Cavill’s replacement in the role of Geralt of Rivia, a switcheroo that will happen in the upcoming fourth season that’s forecast to arrive sometime in 2025.
And speaking of that switch: There still hasn’t been a clear official reason for Cavill’s exit that’s been shared publicly, leading many fans to speculate that an OG Witcher fan like Cavill didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye with the show’s creative team. In recent months, meanwhile, that team has been on the back foot — blaming the show’s disastrous Rotten Tomatoes scores and the evaporation of its audience on what an executive producer described as TikTok-addled viewers.
The show has also scrambled to defend the casting change from Cavill to Hemsworth, basically taking a “Well, other franchises do it, too” justification (a la Doctor Who, Bond, and Spider-Man). As I explained in an earlier piece, though, that logic is seriously flawed.
And let’s not forget the show’s Cavill-less prequel series, The Witcher: Blood Origin, which has an embarrassingly horrible 13% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (based on more than 5,000 user ratings) and which basically crammed everything fans have hated about this franchise into one all-new title. A title that has no Cavill, has nothing to do with the lore, and felt like cheap fan fiction (according to just some of the complaints I’ve seen offered up from fans).
Geralt (and Henry Cavill) deserved better
As for why fans are still seething about what the writers have done to the main show, this entire Reddit thread is worth a read.
In addition to the writers misreading many of the relationships between characters and rushing many of their journeys, one Redditor in that thread above notes that the show made Cavill’s Geralt basically a grunting himbo who drops F-bombs all the time. Whereas, in the books, he’s actually more of an interesting amateur philosopher who says things like:
“People,” Geralt turned his head, “like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.”
By the way: Even if The Witcher does end with Season 5, that doesn’t mean the end of the franchise on Netflix. Another prequel is currently in post-production (The Rats, about a teenage crime gang), and a Witcher anime (titled Sirens of the Deep) is likewise in production.
