Why Fate: The Winx Saga Was Cancelled (& How It Helps The Franchise)

Fate: The Winx Saga season 3 never happened, and while this seemed like bad news for future Winx-related content, it is good for the franchise. Fate: The Winx Saga is a teen drama show based on the animated series by Italian animator Iginio Straffi, Winx Club. Fate: The Winx Saga follows Bloom, a teenager who finds out she is a fairy, as she moves to Alfea to learn to control her powers and discover her origins. Throughout its first and second seasons, Fate tracks the adventures of Bloom and her friends as they face various threads and enemies.

After the debut of season 2 on Netflix, show-runner Brian Young announced the show's cancelation on Instagram, revealing that Netflix would not go forward with Fate: The Winx Saga season 3. While the platform had good viewership and positive audience feedback, the exact reason for the cancelation was not shared, but this could be a testament to the fact that streaming numbers didn't meet Netflix's goal. Fate: the Winx Saga getting canceled may be influenced by the production cost of the show's visual effects.

Why Fate: The Winx Saga Didn't Work

The Netflix Winx Saga Show Made Too Many Changes To The Formula

Fate: The Winx Saga was subject to criticism from the start. Fans accused the show of whitewashing characters, since Musa is East Asian in the cartoon, unlike her live-action counterpart who is played by a white actor. Similarly, Flora, a Latina fairy, was replaced by a white character with the same powers. Admittedly, Fate: The Winx Saga season 2 did fix the injustice of not having Flora in the live-action by introducing the key character who was beloved in the original show and maintaining her Hispanic ethnicity.

Adding Flora wasn't enough to save the show, as Fate: The Winx Saga changed the source material in many significant ways that didn't seem to resonate with fans of the original Winx Saga. The overall tone of the show is darker to create a young adult adaptation of what once was a lighthearted kid's cartoon. The villains in the live-action show are completely different and more sinister than the original Winx Club. The show seems to have disrupted the very aspects that the viewers of the source material loved because of the many changes Fate: The Winx Saga made.

Related

Fate: The Winx Saga's Biggest Changes From The Nickelodeon Cartoon

Netflix's magical YA fantasy series Fate: The Winx Saga made some major changes to the original Winx Club cartoon before being canceled.

Fate: The Winx Saga's Cancelation Can Save The Franchise

Starting From Scratch Is The Best Move For Winx

Despite its flaws and cancelation, Fate: The Winx Saga helped the franchise. The two seasons may have paved the way for a future adaptation of the cartoon that will be more accurate to the source material. As such, any future media product associated with the Winx franchise can use Fate: The Winx Saga and the controversies as a lesson. The cancelation of the show functions as a reminder the franchise will not end with the series. Fate: The Winx Saga also proves that overusing archetypes and changing source material isn't satisfying.

In an interview with Variety, Straffi revealed that he is currently working on a new Winx movie with over a $100 million budget. He said that this will be "a Winx movie, rather than a Fate movie," perhaps suggesting that the film will learn from the mistakes of its predecessor. Thanks to Fate: The Winx Saga and the criticism surrounding the show, the Winx Club cartoon may finally get a faithful adaptation, one that will feature all the Winx fairies and will return to the colorful and light elements that many loved from the Winx cartoon.

Related

Which Fate: The Winx Saga Character Are You Based On Your Zodiac Sign?

Netflix's Fate: The Winx Saga has inspired viewers to decide their matching character based on their own Zodiac signs. Who's yours?

Fans Are Still Trying To Save Fate: The Winx Saga

There's Still Hope Out There For Fate Season 3 On Netflix

Fans aren't taking the Fate the Winx Saga season 3 cancelation lying down. Fate: The Winx Saga aired its last episode on September 2022. Despite that, midway through 2023, fans were still petitioning to save the show. The fact that Warrior Nun was saved, partially thanks to a fan campaign, had fans of Fate: The Winx Saga more optimistic. The show had 151 million hours viewed in its first 28 days, which is rather high. However, after two seasons, the cost of the show might have been what shut it down at Netflix.

Despite that, as Warrior Nun showed, there could be someone willing to put up the money to get these viewers. The chance of Netflix bringing it back is almost non-existent. When Netflix cancels a show, it moves on quickly. While Warrior Nun is coming back, it is not on Netflix.

Fate: The Winx Saga season 2 ended on a cliffhanger and fans want another season to end the story. There is a petition (via change.org) that has more than 140,000 signatures and Warrior Nun only had 123,817 signatures, so there might be hope for Fate: The Winx Saga season 3 still.

Related

Beatrix's Ending Choice Was The Right Decision For Fate: The Winx Saga

The end of Fate: The Winx Saga season 2 was a shocking one for Beatrix, but the Netflix TV show made the right choice with her overarching story.

Fate: The Winx Saga Has Continued With Graphic Novels

One Volume Has Released So Far

Though Netflix hasn’t shown an interest in picking up Fate: The Winx Saga for a special or movie to close out the cliffhangers in the series, that doesn’t mean this particular continuity hasn’t lived on for the characters. While fans who enjoyed the show might still be hopeful, even years after the cancelation, of getting a semblance of closure in live-action, this iteration of the franchise lives on in the form of graphic novels.

So far, one volume of Fate: The Winx Saga has been released in graphic novel form. Called Dark Destiny, the first graphic novel picks up where season 2 of the Netflix series ended. It sees the main characters having to deal with a threat to the school in a form of magic they are unfamiliar with - all while Bloom is still missing.

Written by Olivia Cuartero Briggs and with illustrations from Christianne Gillenardo-Goudreau, the graphic novel was released in mid-2024 though Papercutz Comics. There’s been no word on a follow-up volume for Fate: The Winx Saga just yet though.

Fate: The Winx Saga is the live-action adaptation of the popular Winx Club children's cartoon. It features Bloom (Abigail Cowen), Stella (Hannah van der Westhuysen), Aisha (Precious Mustapha), and other fairies attending Alfea, a magical school that is soon threatened by powerful creatures called the Burned Ones.

Release Date January 22, 2021

Cast Eliot Salt , Elisha Applebaum , Eve Best , Sadie Soverall , Alex Macqueen , Hannah van der Westhuysen , Jacob Dudman , Abigail Cowen , Precious Mustapha , Josh Cowdery , Danny Griffin , Theo Graham , Freddie Thorp , Eva Birthistle

Seasons 2

Showrunner Brian Young