Global streaming giant Netflix
has over the years managed to expand its audience by not just offering a wide streaming
library of licensed property content, but also its own stable of original
productions. These range from films to series, either live-action or animated
(western or anime-style). Even then these Netflix Originals are based off of
licensed properties themselves, like the once-MCU-connected superhero series
like “Daredevil” and the anime-style adaptation of Konami’s “Castlevania”
videogames. Now, Netflix is looking to adapt a franchise not from the Americas
or Asia, but Europe. The long-running stylishly-animated “Winx Club” series
will become a live-action miniseries.
According to Comic Book Resources, the multi-season animated series created by
Italian animator Iginio Straffi for Rainbow SpA and Rai Fiction (on early
seasons, joined by Nickelodeon later on), will be made into a live-action
Netflix streaming series. The show, which features Japanese anime-style
character designs and genre of “magical girl,” has been one of Italy’s major
pop culture imports, now that its episodes are shown in no less than 150
countries around the world. The proposed miniseries is called “Fate: The Winx
Saga,” and has already been filming in Ireland with an ensemble cast led by “Chilling
Adventures of Sabrina” supporting actress Abigail Cowen.
This six-episode mini is produced
by Rainbow Group and Archery Pictures, and represents a further collaboration
between the “Winx Club” creative team and the streaming service. They already
released an animated spinoff of the original “Winx Club” called “World of Winx”
in 2016, which has run two seasons to its mother series’ eight (starting 2004).
Straffi is part of a team of executive producers which include Judy Kounihan,
Kris Thykier and Brian Young, who also serves as show-runner. Cowen is joined in
the cast by Hannah van der Westhuysen, Precious Mustapha, Eliot Salt, Elisha
Abblebaum, Sadie Soverall and Freddie Thorp.
“Winx Club” is set in a
multiverse of different worlds including Earth, connected by magic to a
dimension where worthy students in a fairy academy gain the power to become
fairies to fight sinister magic users and other evil entities. An Earth girl
named Bloom (Cowen) joins the academy together with a close circle of friends
from other worlds, where they form a fairy team called Winx. The franchise has
received contrasting feedback from reviewers, either praising its artistic
design and inspirational message of friendship and female empowerment, or
calling out its sexualized character depictions.
“Fate: The Winx Saga” has yet to
get a release date on Netflix, but principal photography seems to be going
smoothly as announced Tuesday, September 17, by the streaming giant.
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