On Oct. 30th, one of Netflix’s crown jewel franchises, “The Witcher,” returns for its fourth season, facing a challenge more daunting than any monster Geralt of Rivia has faced: a new leading man. Henry Cavill is passing the silver sword to Liam Hemsworth. It is a billion-dollar gamble with both fans and the industry watching to see how it will play out. Early data from Parrot Analytics suggests Netflix has reason to be concerned.
Our finding reveals a potential enthusiasm gap for the new season. Global demand for “The Witcher” in the lead-up to its fourth season is tracking behind where the show was ahead of its season two and three premieres. Four weeks out, the show had less than 30x the average series demand globally compared to 35x ahead of season 2 and 41.5x for season 3 at the same point in time. Tellingly, the spikes in demand around pre-release trailer drops have also been more subdued than in previous years.
Both Season 2 and 3 peaked at 115x demand, highlighting how anticipation in the lead-up to each season eventually resulted in outstanding performance. Interestingly, Season 3 did not reach its peak demand until Netflix dropped the second batch of episodes in July 2023 after it moved to a split-season release.
And “The Witcher” has paid off richly for Netflix so far. From 2020 through the first half of 2025, it ranked as the No. 5 largest global revenue driver for the streamer. Having brought in nearly $930M so far, the fourth season may push it over the $1B mark.
That makes the stakes of the show’s casting shake-up that much higher. Cavill has been a big part of the show’s success, but he has also benefited from the attention the show has brought him. Cavill’s all-time peak global demand rank was during the first season of “The Witcher” when he was the #3 most in-demand talent globally.
Looking at the demographic breakdown of the audience for “The Witcher” alongside Cavill’s audience highlights one reason this has been such a successful casting choice. The audience of the show and the audience for Cavill is nearly identical – male-skewing and almost evenly split between generations, Millennials and younger.
Hemsworth has a female-skewing and younger audience than either Cavill or “The Witcher.” Casting changes like this have the potential to attract new audiences, but going in new directions and making creatively risky choices also risk alienating the existing fanbase. This is what makes pulling off any changes to a beloved franchise like “The Witcher” so challenging. As an adaptation of a book and video game, “The Witcher” series faced the same challenges navigating existing fanbases when it first premiered. Henry Cavill is a known gamer and fan of “The Witcher” game himself, which helped immediately endear him to fans of the game.
Liam Hemsworth has some work to do – either win over existing franchise fans or convince his own fanbase to commit to “The Witcher.” With a fifth and final season already planned, how Netflix navigates this crucial handoff will determine the franchise’s ultimate legacy.
