Blood Origin's failure leaves The Witcher behind its 2 biggest rivals

The Witcher: Bloodborne was a hit with critics and fans alike, and its ratings lag far behind other big fantasy TV premieres this year.

While The Witcher: Origins of Blood was designed to build on the success of its parent series, its failure with critics and audiences has instead left the series as a whole behind its two biggest competitors, Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Lord of the Rings House of Thrones and HBO's Dragon. Critics have slammed the new show, which currently sits in the mid-30s on Rotten Tomatoes. It also failed to catch the public's attention, with a frustrating 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Blood Origin focuses on the event known as the Conjunction of the Spheres and the birth of the witcher wizard. The events and characters in this prequel will have a profound effect on its parent series, driving most of the underlying plot. Given the success of The Witcher itself, Bloodborne isn't expected to go as wrong as it seems.

Blood Origin Puts The Witcher Behind LOTR & Game Of Thrones

Not only has Blood Origin struggled to match the popularity of its parent series and the other prequels in just two weeks after its release. In particular, it wasn't as successful with audiences or critics as Two other high-profile pre-Legendary fantasy series are currently airing: House of the Dragon and The Ring of Power. While both series have their fair share of detractors, they've still somehow become a key part of the cultural conversation in a way that Blood Origin simply hasn't.

Of course, The Witcher as a whole doesn't have the level of cultural cachet associated with Game of Thrones. That's partly because it's just a different kind of story, one that takes on more sleazy and monster-of-the-week forms than a broad rumination on the nature of political power. While Blood Origin successfully revealed the first Witcher, it leaned more towards general fantasy elements, which prevented it from gaining the same philosophical weight as Power or Ring of Power.

Blood Origin Came At The Worst Possible Time For The Witcher

This was a particularly volatile time for The Witcher, especially after the Bloodborne prequels. It was recently announced that Henry Cavill would be leaving the series after season 3, with Liam Hemsworth taking over the role of Geralt. This may not be a death sentence for the series, as other shows have already undergone major cast changes. two chambers For example, Dragon and The Rings of Power received major recasts. Remarkably, however, the latter did not lose a central star.

The Witcher remains one of Netflix's biggest hits. While there's plenty of life left in the franchise -- and the prequels address issues like Wild Hunt before season 3 -- Blood Origin has shown the dangers of releasing prequels that lack the kind of grounded presence that characters like Geralt provide. What the failure of The Witcher: Bloodborne has shown is that it's not wise to rely too much on brand names. If Netflix hopes to compete with HBO and Prime Video, it has a lot of work to do with The Witcher.