Fate: The Winx Saga
A live-action adaptation of the animated Winx Club series.
Fate: The Winx Saga, a live-action supernatural teen drama, adapts the Winx Club cartoon. Brian Young developed the series, which features Abigail Cowen, Hannah van der Westhuysen, Precious Mustapha, Eliot Salt, and Elisha Applebaum. Its first season, six episodes long, premiered on Netflix on 22 January 2021 and attracted 57 million subscribers within 28 days.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Teen drama
- Supernatural
- Dark fantasy
- Creator
- Brian Young
- Based on
- Winx Club, Iginio Straffi
- Composer
- Anne Nikitin
- Country
- United Kingdom; Italy
- Language
- English
- Seasons
- 2
- Episodes
- 13
Facts from the source article.
Cast and characters
Abigail Cowen portrays Bloom, a fire fairy with the power of the dragon flame who discovers she is a changeling; raised on Earth by adoptive human parents, she enrolls at Alfea after her powers manifest. Hannah van der Westhuysen plays Stella, a light fairy and Princess of Solaria raised by her mother Queen Luna. Precious Mustapha is Aisha, a water fairy from Andros with a practical mindset and a need to follow rules. Eliot Salt plays Terra Harvey, an earth fairy with plant speciality who was raised at Alfea. Elisha Applebaum portrays Musa, a mind fairy who feels others' emotions and keeps emotional distance to avoid being overwhelmed. Danny Griffin plays Sky, a skilled specialist and son of Andreas of Eraklyon, raised by instructor Saul Silva. Sadie Soverall is Beatrix, an air fairy who manipulates electricity and is Andreas' adoptive daughter. Freddie Thorp plays Riven, Sky's best friend and a nonchalant specialist. Eva Birthistle portrays Vanessa Peters, Bloom's human adoptive mother with burn scars from an incident where Bloom lost control of her powers. Robert James-Collier plays Saul Silva, the specialist instructor and Sky's adoptive parent. Eve Best is Farah Dowling, headmistress of Alfea. Lesley Sharp (season 1) and Miranda Richardson (season 2) play Rosalind Hale, the former headmistress. Theo Graham plays Dane, a first-year specialist. Jacob Dudman is Sam Harvey, Terra's brother and an earth fairy. Ken Duken plays Andreas of Eraklyon. Brandon Grace is Grey Owens, a specialist and blood witch. Éanna Hardwicke plays Sebastian Valtor, a former specialist and blood witch. Paulina Chávez portrays Flora, an earth fairy and Terra and Sam's cousin.
Production
Iginio Straffi first proposed a live-action version of Winx Club in 2011, after Viacom became a co-owner of his studio Rainbow. He gained live-action experience as a producer for Nickelodeon's Club 57. In March 2018, Netflix ordered a young-adult version as a television series. Straffi declined a Netflix suggestion for male characters to have larger roles. Nickelodeon's American crew members from the cartoon, including Bloom's voice actress Molly Quinn, met the Fate production team and reviewed the pilot script. Rainbow's Joanne Lee oversaw the first season as an executive producer. The writers, entirely new to the Winx franchise, were recruited from teen dramas like The Vampire Diaries. Brian Young, who worked on seven seasons of The Vampire Diaries, is the showrunner. Young stated he chose to "ditch the look" of the cartoon fairies. Some first-season episodes were directed by Lisa James Larsson and Hannah Quinn. Casting calls were held in August 2019, and Abigail Cowen was announced as Bloom in September 2019. Principal photography began in September 2019 in Ireland.
Reception
Rotten Tomatoes reported a 40% approval rating based on 20 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10, and a critical consensus calling the series "flat, flimsy, and forgettable." Caroline Framke of Variety criticized the series for relying on clichés and giving the material an "ominous sheen of sexy intrigue." Joel Keller from Decider urged audiences to skip it, stating nothing about it stands out. Deirdre Molumby from Entertainment.ie praised the cast but criticized the plot and CGI quality. Petrana Radulovic of Polygon wrote that the series creates a "compelling, nuanced plot" with exciting worldbuilding. Melissa Camacho of Common Sense Media criticized the diversity and teen angst but said the story world is easy to escape into. The show peaked at #2 on Nielsen's Streaming Charts with 918 million minutes in viewership. The series received backlash over the casting of Applebaum as Musa, who was coded as East Asian, and the replacement of Flora, coded as Latina, with a new white character named Terra.
Tie-in media
A novelization of the first season, titled The Fairies' Path, was released on 2 February 2021, written by Irish author Sarah Rees Brennan under the pen name Ava Corrigan. Another novel, Lighting the Fire, featuring an original story set before the first season, was released on 16 August 2022, written by Brennan under her real name. In February 2023, Rainbow partnered with Mad Cave Studios to publish graphic novels resuming the story after the series' cliffhanger. The first volume, Dark Destiny, written by Olivia Cuartero-Briggs and illustrated by Christianne Gillenardo-Goudreau, was released as an ebook on 30 July 2024 and in paperback on 13 August 2024. The second volume, The Shadow War, was released on 22 July 2025, with Cuartero-Briggs writing and Valeria Peri illustrating. The story is set to conclude with the third volume, Battle for the OtherWorld, on 8 September 2026.
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