After Stranger Things set multiple new records earlier this year, Wednesday beat one of them and continues to threaten to surpass several others. Now, the mystery TV series, which saw Tim Burton direct four episodes and sign on as an executive producer, has set a new record for the biggest week for any English language show on Netflix.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday had 411.29 million hours viewed from November 28 to December 4. As of the time of writing, Wednesday has 752.52 cumulative hours streamed already and it only began streaming on November 23. It’s only a matter of time before it vaults past Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which had 856 million hours viewed after four weeks. We’re not quite sure yet if Wednesday can Goo Goo Muck dance his way through 1.4 billion hours of watch time in two weeks’ time in order to beat Stranger Things Season 4, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it did. Wednesday owes much of its commercial and critical success due to the collective efforts of its onscreen and offscreen talent. However, it hasn’t been without its controversies. The Scream 5 actress recently confirmed that she had tested positive for COVID-19 while she shot the viral dance scene for Episode 4, “Woe What a Night”. Ortega explains that she felt symptoms as soon as she woke up that day and took medicine in between takes while waiting for the test results. Although MGM Studios, the production company of Netflix’s Wednesday, explained that it followed strict protocols and removed Ortega as soon as she tested positive, fans didn’t like that Ortega seemed more worried about the quality of the dance scene. Furthermore, audiences have criticized Tim Burton for stereotyping the Black characters in Wednesday as bullies and antagonists.
♬ Halloween ・ cute horror song - PeriTune The fallout from the said incidents hasn’t seemed to have affected the viewing hours of the latest live-action family based on The Addams Family. The show continues to go viral on the internet. In particular, the aforementioned dance scene from episode 4 has since inspired a new trend of choreography videos on TikTok. If nothing else, this should guarantee people will continue to watch the TV show amidst the controversy. It’ll be interesting to see how much higher Wednesday will climb up Netflix’s all-time charts. It’s unlikely it’ll reach 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first month, but hey, you’ll never know. Regardless of where Wednesday ends up, we’re hoping Netflix will confirm Season 2 soon. In other news, after starring in one of the earliest box office hits of the year, Scream, Jenna Ortega will reprise his role in the sixth Scream film next year. Scream 6 will premiere earlier than expected and will be available to watch in theaters on March 10.
