The success of Harry Potter show could work in the future. The series has become something of a cultural phenomenon. For one thing, it has a quite respectable 71% on Rotten Tomatoes among critics. Just as importantly, it has also earned strong reviews from audiences, currently sitting at 86%. Thus, it provides a useful template for any future Harry Potter series that might make its way to the small screen.
Like Harry Potter, Wednesday focuses on a young person with extraordinary abilities: in this case, Wednesday Addams, who has the ability to glimpse both the past and the future. As Wednesday starts school with the outcasts of Nevermore Academy, where she is sent after being expelled from a public school, she soon finds herself in the middle of a mystery, as a monstrous creature is committing brutal murders. In the process, she uncovers sinister things about both her own past and that of the Nevermore and the town of Jericho.
Wednesday's Characters & Setting Shares Similarities With Harry Potter
Similarly to Harry Potter, Wednesday takes place at a school specifically designed for those who have special abilities. Furthermore, like Hogwarts, it is also divided into a number of cliques, though they are more informal than the institutionalized houses of the school for young wizards and witches. Many of Wednesday’s characters also share similarities with Harry Potter, including the title character herself, whose journey–from outcast to hero (although Wednesday isn’t a witch like her ancestor Goody)–mirrors Harry’s own. Her personal journey is, in fact, one of the series’ main appeals, and a new Harry Potter series could use a similar type of character to gain audience attention.
The character dynamics between Wednesday and Harry Potter are also very similar. Wednesday, like Harry, soon finds a good friend and loyal ally in Enid Sinclair, and just as Ron and Harry and Hermione often clash, so do Enid and Wednesday have their differences, though they ultimately come to rely on one another. There is also a Dumbledore-like figure in the person of Principal Larissa Weems; Wednesday also has monsters and a villain hiding in plain sight.
A Wizarding World Show Like Wednesday Could Return To Harry Potter's Roots
Should Warner Brothers ever decide to produce a Harry Potter television series in the same mold as Wednesday, it’s easy to see how it could become quite successful. Among other things, it would return the franchise to the roots it has largely abandoned with its cinematic output. The Fantastic Beasts movies have largely failed to appeal because they have very little to do with Hogwarts and the charm of seeing characters navigate the fraught world of school politics.
If Harry Potter were to go more in the direction of Wednesday, however, it would return the franchise to its roots- and Wednesday’s massive success shows the benefit of doing so. Once again, viewers would be allowed to immerse themselves in the world of a magical high school, with all of the complicated feelings and politics that it entails. Such a series could once again allow viewers to follow a character as they come of age, even as they also engage in all sorts of dangerous adventures.
Though Fantastic Beasts has struggled to attain the same success as the original Harry Potter, Hogwarts still has a great deal of story potential behind its walls. A new series set there–whether in the era following Voldemort’s defeat or at some other period of history–would do well to follow the example set by Wednesday as a successful reboot. Doing so could ensure that Harry Potter continues to enchant new generations of viewers, as they increasingly turn to the small screen in search of magical stories.