Netflix’s latest mini-series, The Witcher: Blood Origin, is being review bombed by both the fans of Henry Cavill and the book series by Andrzej Sapkowski.
The Witcher: Blood Origin serves as a prequel to Netflix’s popular fantasy series, The Witcher, based on Sapkowski’s novel series of the same name. The prequel has been developed by The Witcher writer Declan de Barra along with showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich.
The prequel focuses on answering some of the major questions about the world of The Witcher, such as what happened during the mystical event of the Conjunction of the Spheres and how the first Witcher was created.
The series premiered on Netflix this Christmas, only to be review bombed by some upset fans. A few days after its release, Blood Origin landed its official approval rating of 9 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which is at an all-time low for a Netflix series.
The reason behind The Witcher: Blood Origin’s shockingly low ratings is the review-bombing by fans of Henry Cavill and the book series. The series has a 36 percent approval rating from the critics, which too is the lowest recorded one for a Netflix show.
Henry Cavill fans are upset with Netflix and the makers of the franchise because of the recent news of the actor being replaced by Liam Hemsworth to play Geralt of Rivia in the series. The fans of the book series, on the other hand, are review bombing the series due to the franchise’s constant tendency to move away from its source material and not remaining faithful to the books.
While it is true that a large part of the low ratings for the show comes from upset fans, the shockingly low rating by the critics for The Witcher: Blood Origin point to some genuine issues. Many critics consider the series to be badly written with bad dialogues and screenplay. It has also been heavily criticized for diverging from the well-known trope of a fantasy drama.
One of the show’s biggest problems seems to be its inability to exist as a standalone story but rather being relegated to a jumping-off point for the original series. The show does not have a story of its own. It is more like a piece of explanation to provide fans with more information about the world of The Witcher.
As such, it is hard for such a series to sit well with fans, even if we count the biased reviews out of the equation. As of now, the decision to remove Henry Cavill coupled with the poor reviews of the prequel series could prove threatening to the future of the franchise on Netflix.
About The Witcher: Blood Origin
The Witcher: Blood Origin is a four-episode fantasy miniseries adapted from The Witcher novels by Andrzej Sapkowski. It also serves as a prequel to Netflix’s The Witcher.
It is set 1200 years before the events of The Witcher, and will depict the creation of the first Witcher, alongside events leading to the “Conjunction of the Spheres”. Additionally, it will explore the ancient Elven civilization before its demise.
The main cast includes Sophia Brown as Éile, Laurence O’Fuarain as Fjall, and Michelle Yeoh as Scian.
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