One of the most recognizable actors on the planet right now, with or without a mustache's CGI removal, Justice League and DCEU star Henry Cavill is no stranger to taking high-profile roles on the big screen. But now it's time for Cavill to head back to television, as the former Tudors star has been cast as the lead in Netflix's upcoming adaptation of the highly popular novel series The Witcher. Get ready for the Man of Steel to become the Butcher of Blaviken.
As Witcher fans will already have assumed, Henry Cavill will be portraying the lifelong destroyer of monsters Geralt of Rivia for the still-in-development Netflix series. As the main character of the Witcher saga's many multimedia entries, Geralt is a beast of a dude who was was mutated at an early age and trained to slay dangerous creatures as a witcher. Over the years, Geralt struggled to find solid ground to stand on in a world where humanity often appeared to be more evil than the beasts he hunts down. His journey gets more intense once he meets up with a young princess named Ciri and a sorceress (turned future romantic partner) named Yennefer.
It's not quite clear how the TV series will set the plot in motion, and the video game adaptations weren't exactly the strictest retellings of the novels and stories. Beyond that basic logline, not many details have come out in the time since Netflix first announced it was bringing to episodic life Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski's works, which happened well over a year ago. But regardless of the details, we can definitely expect to see Henry Cavill wearing unique costumes, making challenging decisions, and stomping monsters' asses.
Showrunner and executive producer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich joined The Witcher near the end of 2017, and it probably speaks to the complex development process that it's taken this long to find and announce the first major cast member. Hopefully that means all the bugs and kinks are being worked out. Hissrich and Henry Cavill should make for an interesting pairing, since he's a current DC superhero star, and her most recent Hollywood jobs were as a writer and producer for Marvel's Daredevil and The Defenders (also on Netflix). But don't expect for Geralt to share a ton in common with Clark Kent or Matt Murdock.
Below, you can check out the relevant way Henry Cavill celebrated the casting news.
Henry Cavill's role as Charles Brandon on The Tudors was arguably the actor's biggest break until Man of Steel came around, and it was his only major television role before this Witcher announcement changed things up. In between stints within Superman's tights on the silver screen, Henry Cavill starred in Mission: Impossible - Fallout and will soon be seen in David Raymond's psychological thriller Nomis, along with Nathan Fillion and Alexandra Daddario.
The Witcher, which was previously set to get a film adaptation before the streaming service swooped in, will premiere its eight-episode first season on Netflix presumably at some point in 2019. While making that long wait, our 2018 Netflix guide and our fall TV premiere schedule will help soothe any worries about a lack of quality TV.
