Acclaimed actor Laurence Fishburne has officially joined the cast of The Witcher season 4.
Revealed in a press release today (January 12), Netflix confirmed the John Wick star had landed a role in the hit fantasy show's fourth installment. Fishburne will play Regis, a fan-favorite character from Andrezj Sapkowski's The Witcher book series.
In a brief statement accompanying the announcement, Fishburne – who's also known for starring in The Matrix's original trilogy and multiple Marvel projects, such as Ant-Man 2 and What If...? season 2, said: "I’m very excited to be joining the cast and look forward to exploring the wondrous world of The Witcher."
For the uninitiated, Regis is a sophisticated and wise barber-surgeon – one with a mysterious past, no less – who first featured in 'Baptism of Fire', the sixth of Sapkowski's novels. Netflix is keeping Regis' role in The Witcher season 4's plot firmly under wraps, with the world's best streaming service simply telling viewers that Regis will join Geralt on his journey in the show's next installment.
There's further good news for those of you who are still interested in The Witcher following the departure of Henry Cavill, who played Geralt in one of the best Netflix shows' first three seasons. Indeed, Netflix confirmed the series' fourth season will enter full production in spring 2024 (that's autumn for southern hemisphere dwellers), meaning principal photography should begin around March or April.
Lastly, the streaming giant provided a brief logline of what audiences can expect from The Witcher season 4's story. "After the shocking, Continent-altering events that close out season three, the new season follows Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri who are faced with traversing the war-ravaged Continent and its many demons apart from each other," the synopsis reads. "If they can embrace and lead the groups of misfits they find themselves in, they have a chance of surviving the baptism of fire – and finding one another again."
Casting a new-look spell on Netflix's Witcher-Verse
Fishburne won't be the only new face we'll see in The Witcher season 4. As mentioned, with Cavill walking away from one of his dream roles after the third season's full release, Netflix had to find someone else to assume the role of Geralt. In October 2022, we learned Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games) would replace Cavill as the titular character.
Season 4 of The Witcher isn't the only project in development for Netflix's Witcher-Verse, either. Another spin-off series, which is believed to center on The Rats – the gang of misfits Ciri comes across in the season 3 finale (read our Witcher season 3 ending explained article for more details) – has reportedly been filming for months. Meanwhile, another animated movie, titled The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep, will see beloved Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle reprise his role as the gruff, no-nonsense warrior sometime in 2024. Cockle is famous for voicing Geralt in CD Projekt RED's The Witcher video game series.
Netflix's TV adaptation of Sapkowski's novels has been losing its shine in recent years. Indeed, in our review of The Witcher season 3, we said the hit Netflix show was losing its magical touch.
Add in the universally negative reviews that spin-off show The Witcher: Blood Origin was met with in December 2022, and the streamer needs to turn its franchise's fortunes around. It'll hope, then, that the aforementioned spin-off projects and Fishburne's season 4 hiring will go some way to earning back fans' trust.
