The legend Tim Burton returns with yet another mind-bending recreation of one of the cinephiles’ most beloved families, the Addams family. Wednesday Addams, daughter of Gomez Addams and Morticia Addams, has caused quite a stir at all of her eight schools in the last five years. This is why her parents are taking her to Nevermore Academy in Jericho. The 8-episode series will explore her experiences at the academy and something that is being described as a “sleuthing” supernatural mystery. And with Tim Burton in the director’s chair, the show is bound to “snap, snap” in our minds.
The cast includes Jenna Ortega as Wednesday, and Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman as Morticia and Gomez, respectively. Isaac Ordonez will play her brother, Pugsley. George Burcea will play Lurch. As for the other members of the family, we are yet to find out. We also have Christina Ricci (Wednesday from the 90s film series), Jamie McShane, Gwendoline Christie, Hunter Doohan, Percy Hynes White, Emma Myers, Naomi J Ogawa, Joy Sunday, Georgie Farmer, Moosa Mostafa, and Riki Lindhhome.
The trailer begins with Wednesday arriving at a school, which seems to be one of her eight schools from which she has been expelled due to her behavior, which is rude, to say the least. She lets piranhas into the school swimming pool where some boys are playing because they have tortured her brother, Pugsley. It only proves just how much she loves him. However, realizing that their daughter needs better care and special education, her parents bring her to Nevermore Academy, the very place where they met for the first time and fell in love. But there’s more than just love waiting for Wednesday at Nevermore. As we hear her say sometime later in the teaser, she was “stepping into a nightmare” full of “mystery, mayhem, and murder.” Clearly, the series will take Wednesday through the teen years, where she will have to navigate through friends, enemies, and tangled relationships while trying to master her psychic power. From the looks of the teaser, she will also play a part in foiling some kind of killing spree that has been tormenting Nevermore and solving an age-old mystery involving her parents. After all, she isn’t the only one with powers at Nevermore. But while doing so, she will have to be careful of Gwendoline Christie’s character, Larissa Weems, principal of Nevermore Academy, as well as former classmate and adversary of Wednesday’s mother, Morticia, who still has some “unfinished business” with Morticia.
It all began in 1938 when illustrator Charles Addams created a series of cartoons (single-panel) for the New Yorker called The Addams Family. He kept on writing it till his death in 1988. The first adaptation of the Addams Family in Hollywood was a half-hour sitcom that ran from 1964 to 1966. This was followed by two animated series (1973 & 1992). There was also a live-action show, The New Addams Family, that aired from 1998 to 2001. The first film came out in 1991 and had Christina Ricci as Wednesday, along with Angelica Huston as Morticia, Raul Julia as Gomez, and Christopher Lloyd as Gordon Craven. Finally, we had the animated film The Addams Family that came out in 2019. The characters were voiced by Oscar Isaac (Gomez), Charlize Theron (Morticia), Finn Wolfhard (Pugsley), and Chlo Grace Moretz (Wednesday).
While the above-mentioned info is proof that many have tried their hand at reinventing the Addams Family, Tim Burton’s take on one specific character will be the first of its kind. To make things even more interesting, Burton is teaming up with his long-time go-to composer, the great Danny Elfman, who will do the score as well as the show’s original theme.
“Wednesday” will arrive on Netflix during fall 2022.
