It’s official: Netflix landed Tim Burton’s live Addams Family series with an order of eight episodes for a spin-off focused on the iconic character of Wednesday Addams.
Titled Wednesday, the comedy for coming of age, written by Smallville the creators Al Gough and Miles Millar and under the direction of Burton, is a soaking, supernatural mystery that charts Addams’ years as a student at the Nevermore Academy on Wednesday. This is where she tries to master her emerging psychic ability, stop a monstrous murder that terrorized the local city and solve the supernatural mystery that plagued her parents 25 years ago – all while she was looking for her new and very confused relationships.
The YA series, Wednesday’s Addams’ first solo vehicle, shows Burton’s first live show and his debut on TV directing. He and Gough and Millar, who will serve as frontrunners in the series, are executive producers. Wednesday is manufactured by MGM / UA Television, which controls the underlying rights to the IP.
As the deadline was first reported in October, MGM / UA TV took out the project last fall with Gough & Millar and Burton in negotiations, and received several offers with Netflix being the likely winner. Wednesday is a familiar territory for Millar and Gough, who successfully explored the coming of age of another iconic character, Superman, with the hit series Smallville.
‘When we set Al Gough and Miles Millar’s pitch for Wednesday we are struck, like an arrow from a cross, right in our hearts. They nailed the tone, the spirit and the characters, but gave us a fresh way to this story, ‘said Teddy Biaselli, Netflix’s original Series director, an ultimate one-off wolf character. ‘We then got the call that visionary director and lifelong Addams Family fan Tim Burton wanted to make his television directing debut with this series. Tim has had a history of empowering stories about social outsiders like Edward Scissorhands, Lydia Deitz and Batman. And now he brings his unique vision to Wednesday and her haunting classmates at the Nevermore Academy. ”
The executive producer of the series is also the TV writer-producer Kayla Alpert (Code black, on all night) as well as several producers affiliated with the Addams Family IP: Andrew Mittman for 1.21 (The Addams Family, Alphas), Kevin Miserocchi (Tea and Charles Addams Foundation), Jonathan Glickman for Glickmania (Respect, Addams Family 2) and Gail Berman (The Addams family, Alphas).
The story of The Addams family, a fictional household created in 1938 by American cartoonist Charles Addams, has had a number of screen reruns over the years, including two live TV series; a live film franchise, and recently an animated film by MGM with the sequel that dropped in 2021.
Christina Ricci, the actress who most closely connected the character, starred in both feature films on Wednesday, The Addams family in 1991 and continued Addams Family Values in 1993.
On Wednesday, Addams was played by Lisa Loring in the original series. In the first animated series, she was voiced by Cindy Henderson, and by Debi Derryberry in the second animated series, both by Hanna-Barbera. Wednesday, played by Nicole Fugere in the live video film Addams Family Reunion and then Fox Family Channel’s television series The the new Addams family, both of which were manufactured in 1998.
The Addams Family: A New Musical debuted on Broadway in April 2010 with Krysta Rodriguez as Wednesday. Recently, Chloë Grace Moretz spoke on Wednesday in MGM’s animated film for 2019 The Addams family.
Burton previously developed and produced the animated series Beetlejuice, loosely based on his 1988 film, which ran for four seasons during 1989-91.
