In separate projects, Rob Zombie and Tim Burton launched resurrections of similarly kitschy TV projects this fall, but only one of the projects hit the viewership out of the ballpark. That’s to be expected, really, since Zombie took a more niche (and arguably too campy) approach to rebooting The Munsters. Whereas Burton refashioned The Addams Family with intrigue in a show that stands apart from the original series to put spooky, traditionally poker-faced Wednesday Addams into a mystery worth caring about. Jenna Ortega also gives us a Wednesday worth watching for how she pays tribute to but also adds a few layers to the role originated by Christina Ricci.
Wednesday stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán in roles that that they appear destined to play (Morticia and Gomez, respectively), and Wednesday herself is relevant for a 2022 coming-of-age spin, which is quite an accomplishment. As it turns out, buckets of people want to see her time at Nevermore Academy. Additionally, bypassing a more obvious (and crowded) Halloween release date in favor of the binge-friendly, pre-Thanksgiving release date turned out to be a wise move. Via Deadline, Netflix now has a new second-place record:
Wednesday has summoned a new record for Netflix. The supernatural series drew a whopping 341.23M hours viewed in its first week on the streamer, soaring to the top of the TV charts.
It now holds the record for the most hours viewed in a week for any English-language TV series on Netflix. Impressively, that beats Stranger Things 4, which previously held the title. At its peak, the first seven episodes of Stranger Things 4 notched 335M hours viewed in their first full week on the service (and second week in the Top 10).
Still, both Wednesday and Stranger Things have yet to eclipse Squid Game, which has almost universal global appeal on its side and achieved a peak-week record of 571.8 hours viewed. Still, it’s not too shabby to achieve a gothy-success when Burton’s project was promoted as him essentially fashioning a “eight-hour Tim Burton movie.” That sounds fatiguing, but the actual Wednesday is quite the opposite for Netflix’s audience.
(Via Deadline)