Wednesday Debut Broke A Huge Netflix Record
Netflix's Wednesday series has set a record for most hours viewed in a week of an English-language series, breaking the mark set by Stranger Things.
At a time when Netflix viewership is at an all-time high, and the streaming service is overrun with blockbuster shows, Tim Burton’s Addams Family series Wednesday is managing to upstage them all. The Gothically quirky series starring Jenna Ortega (Scream) just set the record for most hours viewed for an English-language series, with an astounding 341.2 million hours viewed during its first week. It broke the record set by Stranger Things, and is even more impressive when you consider it set the mark in less than seven days, according to a press release from Netflix.
Wednesday premiered all eight episodes on Wednesday (appropriately), November 23, the day before Thanksgiving. The holiday likely helped boost viewership, but the show still performed beyond expectations. Over 50 million households watched the show since it premiered, according to Netflix data, and it was the #1 show in 83 countries in its first week.
The previous weekly record of 335.01 hours viewed was set earlier this year by the fourth season of Stranger Things, during its premiere week of May 30 to June 5, breaking the record held by Bridgerton season two. Ryan Murphy’s Jeffrey Dahmer series Monster pulled in 299.840 million hours during for week of September 26 through October 2, coming close to claiming the record, but coming up just short.
Burton serves as executive producer, and even directed four of the episodes. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Spider-Man 2, Smallville) co-created the series based on Charles Addams’ classic characters, and serve as showrunners.
According to stats released by Netflix, Wednesday far outpaced other series on the service over the past week. 1899, the mind-bending sci-fi series, came in second with nearly 88 million hours viewed, followed by the fifth season of The Crown with over 42 million hours viewed, and the third and final season of Dead to Me, which tallied over 33 million hours viewed.
Fans seem to love Wednesday, as they rate it at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics, however, are less enthused, giving it a 69% rating on the site. Nevertheless, fans are already rallying to demand Netflix greenlight a second season.
Jenna Ortega seems born to play the role, and even admitted in a recent interview that, true to Wednesday form, as a child she used to perform autopsies on dead animals she would find outside. She also recently praised Netflix for keeping the character’s Hispanic heritage intact, a tradition that goes back to the classic 1960’s television show, when John Astin changed his character’s name to Gomez Addams and made him a passionate Latin.
Joining Jenna Ortega in the Wednesday cast are Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Addams, Luis Guzman as Gomez Addams, Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester, Gwendoline Christie as Principal Larissa Weems, and Riki Lindhome as Dr. Valerie Kinbott.
Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday in the original 1991 film, appears in the new series as Marilyn Thornhill, one of the staff members at Nevermore Academy, where a mysterious creature is on a killing spree, leading Ortega’s Wednesday to investigate and become embroiled in a conspiracy that goes back decades, and involves her own parents.
