Actor Laurence Fishburne, known for his work as Morpheus in The Matrix series as well as the Bowery King in John Wick and Pops in Black-ish, will play race replaced Regis in Netflix’s The Witcher series.
Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus in The Matrix (1999), Warner Bros.
The Hollywood Reporter shared that “Fishburne has joined season four as Regis, a fan-favorite character from The Witcher books and games.”
The character first appeared in Andrzej Sapkowski’s fifth book in his The Witcher series, Baptism of Fire.
In the book, Sapkowski described him, “A moment later they saw a grizzled head and then a face embellished with a nobly aquiline nose, belonging by no means to a ghoul but to a slim, middle-aged man.”
The character is depicted as a white man on the cover of The Tower of the Swallow, the sixth book in the series and the fourth novel.
The Tower of the Swallow (2017), Gollancz
He’s also depicted as a white man in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game. As part of the game’s in-game card game, Gwent.
Regis as depicted in The Witcher 3’s Gwent card game
Character artist Marcin Blaszczak also shared a model of Regis, where he is very clearly a white man. The character art was done for the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt expansion Blood and Wine.
Character art of Regis for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt expansion Blood and Wine by Marcin Blaszczak
It’s likely Fishburne’s Regis will join Liam Hemsworth’s Geralt as he wanders the world seeking Ciri. In the book, Baptism of Fire he joins Geralt’s team as they attempt to evade Nilfgaardian troops and seek any word on the whereabouts of Ciri and the mage Vilgefortz.
Geralt’s party eventually tracks down Vilgefortz and while doing battle, Regis transforms into his monstrous state and attacks the mage. However, he is easily vanquished and is melted alongside a column he was up against.
Sapkowski detailed his demise in The Lady of the Lake, “The sorcerer had a weapon in his arsenal for every occasion. And for every opponent. Even a vampire. The hands that seized Regis glowed like red-hot iron. The vampire screamed. Geralt also screamed, seeing the sorcerer literally tearing Regis apart. He leaped to his aid, but wasn’t fast enough. Vilgefortz pushed the mutilated vampire against a column and shot white fire at him from close up out of both hands. Regis screamed, screamed so horribly that the Witcher covered his ears with his hands. The rest of the stained-glass windows exploded with a roar and a smash. And the column simply melted. The vampire melted along with it, fusing into an amorphous lump.”
The Lady of the Lake (2022), Orbit
It’s not surprising that Netflix’s The Witcher would race swap Regis. The show’s casting director Sophie Holland shared as part of Jenelle Riley’s Acting Up newsletter that was subsequently published by Variety that she casts people to “affect change” in viewers and manipulate “their unconscious bias.”
She said, ” “You can affect change in whatever tiny way because you are in people’s homes and they’re watching this world. And that sort of solidified when I had a child, she’s five now, and I thought how hard it is to be a girl.”
“I remember thinking I have to help her because she’s going to come under attack, just like I did, just because she’s a girl,” she elaborated. “Maybe she’ll be lucky and get to nine before somebody calls her a b***h. And it made me so sad that she was going to experience that and I couldn’t protect her from that.”
“But what I could do is change the way people see women through casting. I can make them powerful and empowering and then the floodgates will open to them,” Holland revealed.
Freya Allen as Ciri in The Witcher: Season 3 (2023), Netflix
She then shared, “I do apply this theory to everything and it makes me push boundaries a little harder because I think representation is important. Not just for women, but all minority groups.”
“Like, people have different physical abilities and I think it’s important they’re seen in strong and fierce roles. Realizing this was a real moment of falling in love with my craft in a way that feels very specific to me,” she said.
Anya Chalotra as Yennefer in The Witcher: Season 3 (2023), Netflix
In fact, she specifically explained how she did this with Anya Chalotra as Yennefer in The Witcher, “I am always the first to champion diversity in all its glory. One that springs to mind was the character of Yennefer on The Witcher. Lauren Schmidt Hissrich is the showrunner and we work so well together and she’s so open to conversations.”
“In the book, she’s described as the most beautiful woman in the world. This was a few years ago and I’d like to think things have changed. But when you think about people’s unconscious bias – especially in the fantasy world, it felt like these worlds were predominantly white. And I remember saying, ‘I feel like we need to challenge what people think of as the standard of beauty. And having a woman of color in this role does incredibly powerful things to the people watching,” she admitted.
Anya Chalotra as Yennefer in The Witcher (2023), Netflix
The Witcher struggled to connect with audiences during its third season and actor Henry Cavill, who played Geralt of Rivia, left the show following the third season.
The third season has a rotten 54% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Witcher Rotten Tomatoes scores
It also received some of its worst reviewed episodes on IMDb. Specifically the seventh episode of the third season received an abysmal 4.2 out of 10. There were numerous episodes that scored in the 5s as well.
Episode three received a 5.7. Episode four had a 5.4. Episode 5 got a 5.9, and the season finale received a 5.3.
Anya Chalotra as Yennefer in The Witcher (2023), Netflix
The show also bled viewership. The first part of the season topped Netflix’s English-language TV charts with 73 million hours viewed and 15.2 million views the week of June 26th to July 2nd.
However, was nearly cut in half when the second half released to the streamer a month later. The Witcher Season 3 still topped the charts, but its hours views dropped to 59 million and its views declined to 7.8 million for the week of July 24th to July 30th.
The Witcher: Season 3 Part 2 Viewership figures
The Witcher: Season 1 makes Season 3 look even worse given its one of the Top 10 most viewed English-language TV programs on Netflix. It currently sits in 9th on Netflix’s Most Popular list with 663.6 million hours viewed and 83 million views.
Netflix’s Top 10 Most Popular English-language TV programs
What do you make of Fishburne being cast as Regis for The Witcher Season 4?
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