Fate: The Winx Saga was cancelled due to short-sighted decision-making on the part of Netflix execs, but a resolution to the show is in the works.
What Is It?
Based on Winx Club, the globally popular animated series, Fate: The Winx Saga follows five young women who become friends while attending the magical boarding school Alfea in the Otherworld. They must learn how to use their magical powers while also dealing with interpersonal relationships as well as threats from supernatural beings.
Aired: Netflix, 2021-22, 2 Seasons Totaling 13 Episodes
Developed By: Brian Young
Starring: Abigail Cowen, Hannah van der Westhuysen, Precious Mustapha, Eliot Salt, Elisha Applebaum
Why Was It Cancelled?
This fantasy series got off to a strong start in its first season, reaching as high as Number 2 in the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 with an estimated 918 million minutes of viewing. The viewership slipped a bit in its second season, but the show still spent two weeks in the Nielsen charts and five weeks in the Netflix Top 10. Apparently, that was not sufficient to earn it a third-year renewal, though, as the streamer announced the cancellation three months after the second season premiered, leaving the show on a cliffhanger. Showrunner Brian Young made the following statement on Instagram after the announcement:
This is not fun news to share, but Netflix [has] decided not to move forward with season three of Fate: The Winx Saga. This is especially tough because I know how many of you loved this season. It’s a heartbreaking silver lining, but a silver lining all the same. I’m so proud of everyone who worked on the show, and so happy we got to tell the stories we did. Our cast and crew put in a ton of hard work creating this world and these characters. I’m grateful for each and every one of them, and for all of you for watching. It’s been an amazing four years. Hopefully we’ll see each other again in the future.
Winx Club creator Iginio Straffi weighed in on the cancellation in an interview with Variety saying that he was unsure why the show did not get a third year:
The numbers were a bit lower than the first season, but that’s also due to the competition that was different from two years ago. From what we are given to understand, there were several considerations that Netflix made. They ranged from economic ones, of course, given that the third season would have cost more than the preceding ones due to rising talent costs, and the fact that there was a drop in numbers. But I don’t really know.
He also added that production of the show moving from Netflix in the U.S. to Netflix UK may have had an impact because “they had less of a sense of ownership toward this show”. The third season would also have been more expensive to produce because of Netflix’s cost-plus model (they pay more for each season), but as a top-performing show, it certainly seems like it would have justified the cost. But this show was caught up in a wave of cancellations that included Warrior Nun, 1899, The Midnight Club, and more when the streamer was showing very little patience with its originals.
Can It Be Revived?
A live-action movie is in the works as well as a new CGI-animated series, but neither of these projects will follow directly from the Netflix show. These are both continuations of the Winx Club franchise and will follow their own timelines. But for fans of the Netflix series, there is a resolution for the story on the way. The graphic novel Fate: The Winx Saga Vol. 1 Dark Destiny is due out in July 2024 and will carry on from the story that was left unresolved at the end of the second season. Since it is being referred to as “Volume 1”, that suggests that further adventures could follow if the first book sells well.
As far as a revival of the live-action series, that seems like a long shot at this point, but never say never. The franchise is going in a different direction and Netflix execs have turned their attention to the next shiny object, so it seems unlikely that they could be swayed to greenlight a third season. But if fans keep up their efforts, maybe a final movie could happen, similar to what we saw with Sense8. The fanbase has already been vocal that they want the show back, and perhaps doubling or tripling down on efforts could result in something, but the clock is definitely ticking on this one. A drive to get people to subscribe to Netflix to watch the show could help because that directly impacts the bottom line and execs pay attention to that sort of thing.
Where Can You Watch It?
Both seasons are still available for streaming on Netflix and they should probably be there for at least another year. It is possible that streaming rights could switch to the owners of the original franchise at some point, and the show could change venues at that point.
Did you watch Fate: The Winx Saga, and would you support fan efforts to revive the show?
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Well that’s just really crappy. You get interested in a storyline and they just leave you screwed. I won’t be watching anymore Netflix series.
Fate The Winx Saga was doomed to failure since it was announced. Brian Young bears a lot of responsibility for the cancellation of the series, he poorly adapted Winx Club, He made so many bad decisions the list is endless. Even Iginio Straffi himself, in his statement for the cancellation of the series, criticizes Brian Young. Fate The Winx Saga was a highly criticized and controversial series (the whitewashing of two characters and the destruction of Winx Club). Many people criticized how Winx Club was perverted. Many of its views were due to hatewatch (in the first season and a little in the second), why would Netflix continue a series in which a part of the public watches the series to hate it? It is a series that only gave losses and no gains. It’s not even a series that has as many fans as Warrior Nun or Shadow and Bone. In addition to the budget for the third and the drop in views, surely the factor of being a highly criticized and little loved series made Netflix cancel the series. The series will never return, a new Winx Club live action is being planned, and this will have nothing to do with Fate The Winx Saga.
At least it’s good to know that the story will continue in graphic novels, without anyone from the original team having anything to do with it.
The series could have been saved if they had fired an actress and if they had also fired the showrunner.