The Witcher fans will have to wait until 2024 to see Liam Hemsworth replace Cavill, but as far as looks go, Netflix could have done worse.
Liam Hemsworth as The Witcher deepfake with Yennefer
The Witcher fans have had nearly four months to adjust to the thought of no longer having Henry Cavill around on the Netflix series. While Liam Hemsworth's performances won’t be seen on screen until season 4, a new Deepfake video shows him pulling off a convincing Geralt of Rivia.
When Cavill announced his departure last October, few focused on who his replacement would be. The general feeling in the fandom was that, even if The Witcher series is quite different from books or games, the English actor was the perfect Geralt.
WithThe Witcher season 3 now expected to premiere in the summer, viewers will get one last chapter with Cavill before the show faces its hardest challenge yet, moving on without its lead.
However, judging from this Deepfake put together by the Stryder HD YouTube channel, Hemsworth looks quite the part, even without acting in these clips,
taken from Cavill's two seasons as Geralt. It certainly helps that Cavill wore Geralt's iconic white long-hair wig, contact lenses, and a beard to complete the full Witcher attire. In that regard, it’s hard to argue against Hemsworth based on appearances alone, but whether the Australian actor can match his predecessor's performances remains to be seen.
There are currently two clips of this kind posted on Stryder HD’s channel, with both showing that Deepfakes are much easier to make for scenes with low light, as those are the scenes where Hemsworth's face blends in better.
Stryder is a video editor and producer with a particular liking for Deepfake. His past works go as far as turning Tom Cruise into an Iron Man variant, casting Elliot Page in The Last of Us in place of Bella Ramsey, or teasing Harrison Ford's MCU Commander-in-Chief role in Captain America 4: New World Order.
Judging from the comments section on both Witcher videos, the franchise’s fandom has not changed its mind about Cavill leaving, with the vast majority clearly not having any issues with Hemsworth. Instead, they continue to lament losing lost their original Geralt in the first place.
Since that moment, several sources have claimed Cavill left because of disagreements with The Witcher's creative staff, which, according to a former writer, had little or no respect for Sapkowski's source material or CD Projekt Red's games.
The fact that The Witcher's transition into Superman didn't materialize for Cavill has only made the circumstances of his leaving look worse. As far as Netflix's Witcherverse goes, the Blood Origin spinoff received dismal reviews, so with or without Deepfakes, Hemsworth has a huge task ahead of him.
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