Netflix’s “The Witcher” was a smash hit in its first season, launching to much fanfare and a fairly good reaction from audiences. Yet the tide seemed to turn against the series around the second season with criticism emerging about the show’s deviations from author Andrzej Sapkowski’s novel series.
Speaking at the Taipei International Book Exhibition in Taiwan recently, Sapkowski was asked by Polish outlet Dzieje about his thoughts on the ongoing Netflix series to which he responded with the rather curt: “I’ve seen better. I’ve seen worse” and didn’t go beyond that.
Sapkowski was featured in the marketing for the first season and appeared in featurettes to promote the show alongside the cast members and showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich. However he has mentioned in the past he is happy to remain creatively hands-off regarding the series – unlike say the very involved George R.R. Martin in “Game of Thrones” or Neil Druckmann for “The Last of Us”.
New storylines, new antagonists and different characterizations of fan favorites were introduced in “The Witcher” second season, changes that were met with a rather vocal response, whilst the more recent prequel spin-off limited series ‘Blood Origin’ was met with scathingly negative reviews.
Reports of behind-the-scenes issues from one ex-staff writer, and the abrupt exit of Henry Cavill from the lead role of Geralt of Rivia after he finished filming the third season, has led to a backlash against the series in the past few months.
Officially the fantasy series has been renewed for a fourth season with Liam Hemsworth taking over the Geralt role, though the same outlet has reported recently that Netflix is potentially planning to shoot a fifth season back-to-back with the fourth – even as officially there is no fifth season as of yet.
Source: Redanian Intelligence (via Winter is Coming)
