It’s been a rough year for Netflix’s The Witcher, and the backlash surrounding Henry Cavill’s exit seems to be harming the show.
According to Deadline, numbers for the first five episodes of The Witcher Season 3 are down quite a bit vs. the first five episodes of The Witcher Season 2 in new data shared by Samba TV measurements.
The company has revealed that The Witcher Season 3 Episode 1 secured 1.1 million U.S. households in L+5d data.
That number is down from The Witcher Season 2 Episode 1, which managed 1.3 million U.S. households across the same period.
Even more concerning is the slippage for the episodes post-premiere:
The Witcher Season 3 Episode 2 had 893,000 viewers, The Witcher Season 3 Episode 3 had 750,000 viewers, The Witcher Season 3 Episode 4 had 602,000 viewers, and The Witcher Season 3 Episode 5 had 505,000 viewers.
Samba TV shared that all episodes of The Witcher Season 2 reached over 1 million U.S. households during their first week of streaming.
While Samba TV’s number won’t tell the whole picture, we’ll need to wait for more data from Netflix as well as the Nielsen streaming chart to find out how the show fared.
Netflix revealed earlier this week that the first five episodes drew an average of 15.2 million views, which helped the show to the top spot.
The series was also kicked from the top spot as of Thursday morning by a stand-up special on the platform.
If the other metrics do turn out not to be in the series’ favor, it’s probably because of the immense backlash leveled at the series and Netflix following Henry Cavill’s shocking exit.
News broke in October 2022 that Liam Hemsworth was taking over the role of Geralt of Rivia, beginning with The Witcher Season 4.
There are also rumors the show has been renewed for The Witcher Season 5, so it seems like Netflix is betting big on the show’s continued success.
However, fans appear to be revolting following the replacement.
The Witcher Season 3 is currently sitting pretty at an 86% approval rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, but the good news ends there.
The show seems to be getting review bombed as of this time of writing and is sitting on a paltry 33% with audiences.
Netflix also courted controversy when it shared photos around various landmarks earlier this month with the message, “Yes, he’s still Geralt in Season 3 of The Witcher.”
It certainly sounds like the streaming service has picked up on the complaints from fans about the recast, but the marketing strategy is a bit bizarre because it doesn’t exactly paint Hemsworth in the best light.
It hints that they know people are purposefully not watching because of the change.
The second half of The Witcher Season 3 is set to launch on Netflix on July 27, so we’re sure that will be the key to telling whether the numbers will be stable or if the show has been harmed amid the backlash.
What are your thoughts on the initial numbers? Have you bailed on the show?
Hit the comments.
Stream all episodes of The Witcher on Netflix.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
