TV

The Witcher's 'Magical and Political' S3 Won't Divert from Books, Showrunner Promises

The Witcher's 'Magical and Political' S3 Won't Divert from Books, Showrunner Promises
Image credit: Legion-Media

After Henry Cavill and the showrunner's conflict due to the "unfaithful" adaptation of the original books, apparently, season 3 of The Witcher will actually follow the books.

We're all very well aware of the drama that's been taking place in The Witcher 's behind-the-scenes and the reason for that.

Henry Cavill, the lead actor who was utterly excited to join the project, discovered that his showrunner and writers haven't even read the books, and the series was straying way too far from the source.

For a huge The Witcher fan like Cavill, this was blasphemy, and after he tried to consult the writers and was ignored multiple times, his feud with the show's executives began.

Fast-forward a few months forward, and it was announced that Henry was leaving the project after the third season, and his character would be recast.

The majority of the series' fans took Cavill's side — especially those who read Andrzej Sapkowski's books. The audience was also incredibly frustrated with Henry Cavill's quit, but admittedly, the actor actually achieved something in the end.

In their recent interview with EW, The Witcher's showrunner Lauren Hissrich and the Yennefer actress Anya Chalotra revealed that the nature of S3 will differ from the previous seasons.

Up until this point, the TV series took far too many liberties with the source material (the reason why Cavill left, presumably), but that stage is over.

Season 3 will be the adaptation of one of the original book series' most beloved books, Time of Contempt.

It's an action-packed chapter with already well-established character relations, and season 3 will follow Sapkowski's vision more closely.

"Time of Contempt is so action-packed <...>. It is one of the books that I think has the best character development that is matched with high-stakes action, high-stakes plot moments," explained Lauren Hissrich.

According to her, starting from S3, there will be no need to divert from the books as much as she did previously.

Anya Chalotra joined in, claiming that the new season is "a lot more politically driven" and will "get a lot more magic" which she personally feels very excited about.

Apart from that, season 3 will see Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri's little family finally take shape, and the characters will grow closer together after everything they've been through.

We're glad to hear this news, and it will be curious to see just how well the show adapts Time of Contempt.

On the other hand, it's sad that the decision to start properly adapting the books instead of pretty much mangling them was made so late — otherwise, it's likely we wouldn't have lost Henry Cavill's Witcher.

Source: Entertainment Weekly