In a nutshell:
Tim Burton makes his TV debut in an Addams Family coming-of-age spin-off centring on droll daughter Wednesday, played by Jenna Ortega, coming to Netflix soon.
When is the release date for Wednesday?
Netflix has officially confirmed that Wednesday will premiere on 23 November.
Who is in the cast of Wednesday?
Jenna Ortega stars as the titular Wednesday Addams, a high-school student coming to grips with her supernatural abilities. In perfect casting, Catherine Zeta-Jones will play her mother Morticia and Luis Guzman will be impassioned father Gomez. Game of Thrones’s Gwendoline Christie also appears as the principal of the school, who takes issue with the Addams Family due to her personal history with Morticia, an old classmate. Excitingly, Christina Ricci, who famously played Wednesday in the Barry Sonnenfeld films, also has a major role – not as the older Wednesday in a flash-forward, as you might assume, but as a completely different and new character who, until recently, was shrouded in mystery.
What do we know so far about Wednesday?
Tim Burton is set to direct, finally helming a series that naturally aligns with his macabre aesthetic. Interestingly (and unsurprisingly), he was one of the first auteurs tapped by producers to direct The Addams Family in 1991, and had previously worked with its two screenwriters Caroline Thompson and Larry Wilson on Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Beetlejuice, respectively. However, due to a scheduling conflict (he was mid-production for Batman Returns at the time), he declined, and the Coen brothers’ favourite cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld took his place in the director’s chair.
In terms of the plot, the eight-part live-action mystery-comedy will explore Wednesday Addams’s time as a polarising student at the Nevermore Academy in the small town of Jericho. A twisted coming-of-age tale, Wednesday makes both friends and enemies, and must navigate new, complicated relationships while she struggles to master her emergent psychic powers. That’s while dealing with a local killing spree that is terrorising her classmates, and a 25-year-long supernatural mystery that has ensnared her parents. Being a teen is never easy.
Is there a trailer for Wednesday?
Yes. A first teaser of Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams arrived on 6 June, showing a shadowy figure braiding her hair before Ortega steps into the spotlight, adjusting her collar then clicking her fingers as her trusty Hand leaps up onto her shoulders. A proper trailer followed on 17 August, giving fans a sense of exactly the sort of mischief Ortega’s Wednesday will be getting up to (think: dropping bags of piranhas into the Nancy Reagan High School pool), and offering a first proper glimpse of Zeta-Jones and Guzman in character.
Another trailer landed on 9 October, showing Ortega’s Wednesday settling into Nevermore – dabbling in fencing, spooking her new classmates and proving herself a dab hand at archery. “Secret societies, hidden libraries, a homicidal monster. What other surprises are in store?” she deadpans in a voiceover. The answer? The first appearance of Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester and Christina Ricci as Miss Thornhill, a teacher who takes Wednesday under her wing.
How should I entertain myself until Wednesday premieres?
Where to begin? You can fall in love with the zany family again through the 1964 TV show, 1992 Hanna-Barbera cartoon, and recent animated movies, but we recommend starting with the iconic Oscar-nominated films. The first, The Addams Family, is light fun, but the sequel, Addams Family Values, is more polished and memorable, with playwright and New Yorker humorist Paul Rudnick serving as writer. (He also wrote the timeless Sister Act.) Still hungry for more? Discover the original single-panel comic strip series in The New Yorker to see where it all started.
