The Witcher producer blames Americans and social media for Netflix series' simplified plot

Look at this clown! First, they came out saying they weren’t even fans of the material. You have Henry Cavil in the lead role who is a super fan of the source materials arguing with you and the writers about the show. And then you finish it off by blaming the audience for your decisions. Mind you, the audience you have ultimately attracted is largely influenced by the decisions you have made throughout the production of YOUR show. The audience didn’t make this show, YOU did

Yeah, right.

I don't think any American was like "wow I want a shittier version of the Witcher to watch, that'd be sooo great!"

The games and books seemed to do just fine in America lol

Yeah, blame your customers.

Simplifying is really different from what they did which is completely alter characters, unnecessarily kill off characters, introduce new plots that didn't exist, etc. The Lord of the Rings movies, and the recent Dune movie both did a lot of that but are considered fantastic adaptations. Even Game of Thrones was an excellent adaptation for the first ~5 seasons and had huge mass market appeal while still being complex.

This is just shitty writers making excuses.

We made it this way because you're stupid. Also, if you don't like it, you're stupid.

No wonder it turned out to be a pile of dogshit.

When it flops they'll blame Americans too. Narcissists are incapable of assuming responsibility for their own failures.

"we want to make more money so we dumbed down the plot to idiot level and blame it on americans being dumb. Also we changed everything to be more emotional because that's what tiktoks kids want, more emotion and less plot or something"

Guy sounds like a twat.

This is the kinda guy that would yell at parking sign for smashing into his car.

I know everyone thinks I'm a brittle American, but I'm kind of sick of everyone blaming Americans for choices that are made by people who think poorly of Americans.

You know that meme where the guy riding the bike sticks a crowbar in the tire? Yeah...

Sounds like sour grapes and rationalization. The producer states that his complicated projects failed. If all of your complicated projects failed, then it may be that you struggle with making complicated projects, not that Americans don't like complicated projects.

Plus, it sounds like he disproves his own point without realizing it. He simplified the Witcher and it still isn't doing well. Isn't that an indicator that maybe plot complexity isn't as strong of a predictor of audience engagement as he thinks?

This is coming from someone who never even read the books and got in fights with HC because of deviating from the world of the books/games?

Yup cause Amaricans wrote the script and decided against the millions of of fans (including the lead actor) who specifically said the new direction sucked directly to the entire production team... yup amaricans.

He's really blaming the execs and showrunner between the lines I think. Saying she had to "make tough decisions" means "she fucked up". It's Netflix and the showrunner who think they need to go to the lowest common denominator with scripts to appeal to Americans, especially hard fantasy/sci-fi. So he's kinda pissed at both groups really not just audiences.

It's a shame because other works like GOT 1-5 show the opposite. Go for complex, go for the source material, and audiences will be patient for it.

Game of Thrones was the most popular show in the world not too long ago and is more complicated. House of the Dragon is also complicated and did well just last year. There have been tons of complicated dramas that have been popular. This is just a dumb excuse

This is just damage control, there doesn't have to be meaning to these words other than a try of appeasing the fans. That said though, it's ironic how the Witcher games at least (haven't read the books yet) have quite mature and well-written content compared to most other games, so they're like the opposite of what he's trying to say here and people LOVE the games for that. So it's literally the opposite that's true. If you put out over-simplified garbage, you will not create anything good with that kind of ingredients.

The tale of producers dumbing down plot and dialogue for greater main stream appeal is as old as show business. And from my experience said producers are almost always wrong. Sorry pal, but you can't blame social media for something your peers have always been doing.

I blame the fact that the producer doesn't give a single fuck about the story.

Huh, the games did phenomenally well in America. Weird. /s

We're in an age of knee-jerk finger pointing, with the problem getting worse the higher you get in society. It's just one giant game of blame hot-potato.

Here's the thing: The producers don't owe the fans shit. They don't owe the fans an explanation even. They owe the investors an explanation. The fans are just there, that's the reality of being a fan of something. We don't get a say, we just can choose to watch or not, and then decide to trash it or praise it online if we want to.

So while there's a problem going up the ladder of the blame game, there's another one coming back down the ladder, and it's entitlement. For some odd reason there's an air of "we deserve this content, exactly to our specifications" and it permeates games, movies, music, all of the entertainment content we have been inundated with as a society. And I think the culture generally leans towards encouraging it because it keeps the culture thriving. But it also keeps us in the exact status quo we're in as a society, beholden to these billionaire publishers we all rail on daily.

Because let's face it: We as a society spend an enormous amount of energy and as such, destroy a lot of the planet, on all this entertainment. If we can't accept that as a fact then we're fucking doomed.

Series Produced by
Jason F. Brown ... executive producer (24 episodes, 2019-2023)
Steve Gaub ... executive producer / co-producer (24 episodes, 2019-2023)
Tomasz Baginski ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Sean Daniel ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Lauren Schmidt Hissrich ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Mike Ostrowski ... executive producer / producer / co-executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Jaroslaw Sawko ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Piotr Sikora ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Simon Emanuel ... consulting producer / executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2021)
Matthew O'Toole ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2021-2023)
Matthew Bouch ... consulting producer (12 episodes, 2021-2023)
Katie Bullock-Webster ... post producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Declan De Barra ... supervising producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Ildiko Kemeny ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Jenny Klein ... co-executive producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Sneha Koorse ... supervising producer (8 episodes, 2019)
David Minkowski ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Suzie Shearer ... line producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Mark Birmingham ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2021)
Sean Guest ... associate producer (8 episodes, 2021)
Sam J. Brown ... associate producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Ben Burt ... associate producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Javier Grillo-Marxuach ... executive producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Haily Hall ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Sasha Harris ... producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Veselin Karadjov ... line producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Tania Lotia ... supervising producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Tera Ragan ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Alik Sakharov ... executive producer (7 episodes, 2019)
Kathy Lingg ... executive producer (6 episodes, 2019)
Juan Cano Nono ... Líne Producer Canary Islands (4 episodes, 2019)
Beau DeMayo ... co-producer (2 episodes, 2019)
Stephen Surjik ... executive producer (2 episodes, 2023)
Marc Jobst ... consulting producer (1 episode, 2019)

Have they canceled this dumpster fire yet?

How? Aren't they the ones in charge? American audiences have as much influence on the product they chose to deliver as Americans did for Dark. Great show by the way.

"The algorithm is the algorithm."

Alternative headline "Person highly involved with making show blames anyone but themselves for failure"

Remember, Game of Thrones did well, and that's not a simplified show during its peak.

Season 2 ("Book 1" in the US), I agree made some TERRIBLE changes, especially around Yennifer's relationship with Ciri.

Having just finished Season 3, however, I feel like they mostly pulled back into following the book's major plotlines. Sure, a TV show makes some concessions on content, but overall I felt it followed the books "okay". Everything that happened in Thanedd was close, and everything after that too, in the final 3 episodes. Rience was the strangest change to me, since that doesn't happen for several books and it's Ciri's doing.

Does the general public agree? Or are we still so mad about Season 2 that we refuse to see Season 3 positively?

It's a bold strategy, Cotton!

When asked what he believed to be significant for younger people, Baginski replied: "Just emotions. Just pure emotions. A bare emotional mix. Those people grew up on TikTok and YouTube, they jump from video to video."

So basically It's Gen Z that he couldn't create an interesting plot from the source material

Right... It's the audience's fault and not the show runners who outright refused to follow the books and games leading to the star of the show leaving. 🙄

What a muppet...

Sooo ... are we getting some blonde royal witch that lost her kingdome to ride a dragon (flying unicorn?) & genocide a bit in the next series?

The previous time around we got some really top level memery out of it ... tho it would be will be a shame with this one :/