Netflix has announced that it will be releasing a new show from Tim Burton, his first ever stab at directing for television: Wednesday. Wednesday will be a new series from the director known for his Goth styling and off-kilter characters and will star one of the most famous Goth/off-kilter characters ever in Wednesday Addams. Yep, the show is a spin-off of The Addams Family, the iconic family created by American cartoonist Charles Addams in 1938 and routinely adapted into films and TV since then.
Wednesday will be the first show to focus solely on a single character from the series as it follows Wednesday’s adventures while spending time as a student at Nevermore Academy. Netflix describes the series as a live-action, sleuthing, supernaturally infused, coming-of-age comedy/mystery for young adults. Wednesday will spend her time discovering her latent psychic abilities and solving a mystery involving a killing spree in the small town the school is located in and a supernatural mystery that involves her parents. Of course, there will be the teenage drama aspect of her attending a boarding school and meeting a cavalcade of other students.
“When we first heard (showrunners) Al Gough and Miles Millar’s pitch for Wednesday we were struck, like an arrow from a crossbow, right in our hearts,” said Teddy Biaselli, Netflix’s Director of Original Series. “They nailed the tone, the spirit, and the characters, but gave us a fresh way into this story.”
The real question here is how it took so long for Burton to get to work on an Addams Family property. The director and the franchise are perfectly suited for each other, and if you asked most people they might say he was already the director of the ’90s films (actually Barry Sonnenfeld and Dave Payne) and the animated reboots (actually Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan). No casting has been announced, but it’s hard to imagine they’ll find anyone who could more perfectly encapsulate the character than Christina Ricci.
Wednesday on Netflix will be executive produced by Andrew Mittman for 1.21 (The Addams Family, Alphas), Kevin Miserocchi (Tee and Charles Addams Foundation), Kayla Alpert (Code Black, Up All Night), Jonathan Glickman for Glickmania (RESPECT, Addams Family 2), and Gail Berman (The Addams Family, Alphas).
There’s no release date yet for the eight-episode series.
