Netflix has renewed its smash hit Wednesday for a second season, the streamer announced Friday after speculation swirled that the show could be moving to another platform and just days after Netflix’s move to cancel another popular original show sparked controversy among fans this week.
Key facts
- Wednesday, which stars Jenna Ortega as the latest actress to play the titular Addams family character, was the second most popular Netflix series of 2022, following only the massive season 4 of Stranger Things.
- But the spooky series even broke records previously held by Stranger Things, and in November became Netflix’s most-watched English-language series in its debut week after notching 341.2 million viewing hours, the streamer said.
- Despite Wednesday’s success, Netflix was slow to announce a second season of the hit show, leading some viewers to speculate that the series’ next installment could stream on another platform like Amazon Prime after Amazon and MGM—which owns the studio that created Wednesday—closed on an $8.5 billion merger in March.
- Nielsen data found that Wednesday’s success was driven by its popularity with multicultural audiences, particularly Hispanic households, which accounted for about 25% of all viewers, according to the analytics firm.
- The show is also popular with young women, Nielsen said, with about 60% of Wednesday viewers being female and more than half between the ages of 18 and 49.
Surprising fact
Wednesday’s success has spilled over into other facets of culture, spawning a viral dance and pushing Lady Gaga’s 2001 song “Bloody Mary” to soar on the charts more than a decade after it was first released. While the song isn’t featured in the series, a viral fan edit of Ortega dancing to a sped-up version of the track created a TikTok trend of users recreating the dance. “Bloody Mary” has surpassed more than 100 million streams on Spotify and even Lady Gaga posted a video of herself imitating Ortega’s dance moves to the song.
Tangent
Earlier this week, news broke that Netflix would not move forward with a second season of its multilingual science fiction series 1899, a decision that left both fans and the show’s directors confused. The news sparked criticism about Netflix’s tendency to cancel original shows after just a handful of seasons and often suddenly without plot resolution. Directors Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar—who were also behind Netflix’s thriller series Dark—said in a statement Monday they’d hoped to finish out the series with a second and third season. The series debuted at the second spot on Netflix’s list of top-watched shows the week it released, having clocked 79.27 million hours viewed just the first four days of its availability to stream. Netflix’s U.S. and Canada scripted series head Peter Friedlander told Variety earlier this year that when Netflix executives “have to make our [cancelation] decisions, it’s about the long term and the longer term viewing. We are always looking at many variables, too. The Top 10 is just one variable in that.”
Big number
20. That’s how many original English-language shows were canceled last year, according to a count by Variety.
Key background
Despite success with breakout hits like Stranger Things, Wednesday and Dahmer, Netflix struggled with subscriber losses throughout 2022. Last month, Netflix shares dipped after reports that the streamer’s new ad-supported subscription tier produced disappointing results for advertisers. Hundreds of employees were laid off last year during several waves of cuts.