If you’ve ever wanted to witness the coming-of-age of cartoonist Charles Addams’ iconic character Wednesday Addams, Netflix has got your back. The streamer has commissioned an eight-episode young adult series centered on her with Tim Burton onboard as the director and executive producer. The show, titled Wednesday, is created by Smallville’s Al Gough and Miles Millar.
There have been various iterations of Wednesday Addams on-screen and on-stage over the years, with the most memorable being Christina Ricci’s portrayal of her in the original live-action The Addams Family (1991) and its sequel Addams Family Values (1993). Chloë Grace Moretz voiced her most recently in the 2019 animated film.
But this series is less about the Addams family overall and more about the titular character’s time at Nevermore Academy. Like any student in most supernatural YA drama nowadays (see: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Legacies, Nancy Drew), Wednesday will navigate tangled relationships, master her psychic abilities, and thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town while solving the mystery involving her parents from 25 years ago. Hopefully she retains her dark, sadistic, spider-loving side. Let the casting wishlist commence!
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If it’s Tim Burton it’s guaranteed to be full of white people
I’m starting to think that Tim Burton thinks “black people” means “goths”
Come on now, I’m sure he’d be willing to cast Johnny Depp in blackface.
He’d be stealing Gore Verbinski’s oeuvre then.Dollars to doughnuts, Burton’s dream is Morticia & Gomez to be Helena Bonham Carter & Depp respectively, and make them into quasi-CG bastardizations of what we grew up with or want.
Depp’s shitty Keith Richards imitation was blackface?
Nope, but your shitty trolling is much appreciated.
What? How do you relate Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski’s “oeuvre” to blackface if you’re not referring to Pirates of the Caribbean? Are you trying to make a Rango joke?
It’s baffling how difficult it is for you to figure out such a simple statement, my dude.
I like how they’re taking an “okay idea” (Teenage Wednesday) and going off in the worst possible direction right from the start so we don’t even need to ponder watching it.
. . . thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local townThwart, or happily watch with a bag of popcorn? I mean, this is supposed to be Wednesday Addams we’re talking about.
I’d watch if she critiqued the killing spree in an MST3K way.
*Wednesday gives thumbs up* “It stinks!”
Maybe the monstrous killing spree will be an MLM type scheme.
The Addams family, Wednesday included, have canonically been extremely pleasant and easy to get along with people. If this was an episode of the classic show, the townsfolk and monster would part as friends after the Addams family had worked them over with kindness.
I was really hoping this was going to bring back Christina Ricci, and Wednesday is maybe working at a drugstore.
Ricci could play a new iteration of Morticia—with Rami Malek as Gomez.
Wow… I’m totally onboard for a Malek Gomez. I don’t think he could match Raul Julia’s energy, but he could take that character off into some weird directions.
I mean, no one could match Raul Julia’s energy. The man could have powered a small city.
There are probably people reading this site who are too young to remember when Tim Burton made movies that were fun and original.
I want to say Big Fish was the last one worth seeing? But I only saw it once so it can’t have been that great.
Big Fish was certainly a great looking Burton film, but I hated Billy Crudup’s character so much it ruined the movie for me. Seriously, he hates his dying father because the guy likes to tell tall tales?
I think he is angry at his father because his father had to make everything (including his son’s wedding) into the “All About Me” show. I could see how that would be tiresome. Having a dazzling, charismatic parent, who loves being the center of attention, is its own burden.
I was genuinely shocked how affected I was by the ending of Big Fish.“How does it begin?”“Like…this…”
Big Fish was a pretty ‘meh’ film for me, but I liked Sweeney Todd and Corpse Bride.
See Corpse Bride was ruined for me because the protagonist was so charmless. He was sniveling, ineffectual, and seemed to have no personality traits that would make him appealing to either of the main female characters.
I’m snivelling, ineffectual, and have no personality traits that make me appealing to female characters. Being represented in the arts is important to me.
it would have been better for Burton if it was *other people* who diminished his originality
So is the target audience people who enjoyed and remembered the ‘90s Addams Family films as well as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands or younger people who might not know about these characters? I never saw the cartoons so maybe they were popular and the Addams are more widely known than I imagine. Anyway personal life aside Johnny Depp as an actor isn’t fit to follow Raul Julia. But personal life counts too so please, Tim. No.
Thwart a monstrous killing spree? She should be behind it.
I hate how people want to pretend like the first Addams Family was good. It sucked! It sucked so bad that it negatively impacted the box office of the much better sequel! Yes, I need to go outside more but it’s cold and I have early-onset osteoathritis so I won’t!
what i liked about the sequel is that the addams family did what they wanted to do, said what they wanted to say, lived how they wanted to live, played how they wanted to play, danced how they wanted to dance, and then kicked and slapped their friends.
And also they went ninja, went ninja, went.
I still enjoy the first one enough, but the sequel far superior. Dan Hedaya was in it and all plus it was kinda pretty.
I did discount the Dan Hedaya bump, which was an oversight.
The 1991 “Addams Family” is one of my favorite movies ever, sooooooooo…
I still love you.
made with real girl scouts
Both movies excel when they take the Addams out of their element. The first movie is just passable, but the scenes during their eviction are hilarious. And do I even need to mention the comedic genius that are the summer camp scenes in Values? (Plus, Christina Ricci’s painful metamorphosis from blank faced to a smile after being in the Harmony Hut is one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen.)
And Joan Cusack…
“A drive? And miss Gilligan?!”
The first time out it was in the audience footsteps of the TV show, which huge numbers of people had seen, and not the New Yorker illustrations, which most had not. This disconnect was jarring. Carolyn Jones, John Astin, Jackie Coogan, and Ted Cassidy were endearing. Anjelica Houston, Raul Julia, Christopher Loyd, and Carel Struycken were more true to Charles Addams vision and still memorable, but hardly endearing. The standout in the movie was Christina Ricci, but not enough to carry the movie all the way back to endearing.
It just now occurred to me how absurd it is that Aubrey Plaza has never played an adult Wednesday Addams.
Let the casting wishlist commence!Dafne Keen, maybe, though her dance card is pretty full as of late. Ditto, Bella Ramsey. Fuck it, just bring back Ricci. It’ll be darkly lit most of the time, anyway.
I demand that this series be filmed in black and white, and be as much like the original TV series as possible.
I miss this series. It’s the first thing I thought of when I read the headline above.
I can’t wait to see how Burton somehow casts Johnny Depp as Wednesday.
Depp’s last film with Burton was Dark Shadows back in 2012. Burton has made four films since then.
You don’t know how to enjoy a joke.
It’s actually because I enjoy pedantry even more.
Wait, have we not cancelled Tim Burton yet? I mean he has to have done some terrible things to someone right?
He did make that 3D Alice in Wonderland movie so you could argue he did something terrible to many, many people.
He got in some hot water for having a Not Great response as to why he hardly ever uses non-white actors.
I want to be excited about this but Tim Burton hasn’t made a great film since Ed Wood.
just like Guillermo Del Toro, if he’s as good as many people seem to think he is, he should have made more than one or two really great films by now. Hit rate = low. Very low.
I truly thought “Cruella” was the nadir of modern revisionism, but “Wednesday” is REALLY giving it a run for its money. “Psychic abilities”? “A mysterious killer”??? This is like a parody of modern TV shows