Tim Burton is bringing a live-action Wednesday Addams series to Netflix simply titled Wednesday. Wednesday Addams has long been the stand-out character from the Addams Family cartoon and subsequent film adaptations. A seven-year-old obsessed with death, Wednesday does everything from performing experiments on her brother Pugsley to raising pet spiders in the family’s eerie manse. In the early cartoons, Wednesday is the younger sibling to Pugsley and the Addams’ only daughter, but more recent adaptations have seen Wednesday become the older sibling.
Christina Ricci famously portrayed Wednesday in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values live-action films. That version of Wednesday took on a darker, more nihilistic tone that mined the character for comedic effect. More recently, Chloë Grace Moretz voiced Wednesday in 2019’s animated The Addams Family. While that film received mixed reviews, Moretz and the rest of the cast were praised for their vocal talent.
Related: Casting Tim Burton’s Live-Action Addams Family Reboot
Now, Wednesday is being brought back to live-action. Burton will be making his first foray into television with a live-action Wednesday Addams series for Netflix. Burton will also serve as director on the series, which is said to be a coming-of-age tale set at Nevermore Academy. The series will follow Wednesday as a student at the academy as she investigates strange supernatural mysteries occurring at her school. Al Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville, Into the Badlands) will serve as the series’ showrunners, while Andrew Mittman (The Addams Family), Kevin Miserocchi (Tee and Charles Addams Foundation), Kayla Alpert (Code Black, Up All Night), Jonathan Glickman for Glickmania (Addams Family 2), and Gail Berman (The Addams Family) are executive producing.
Burton had previously been associated with an Addams Family related project. The proposed film would have been a 3D stop-motion animated project, but that film was eventually scrapped. Reports also circulated late last year that Burton was working on a live-action television show about the Addams Family, but details had been scarce until now. Burton’s aesthetic is perfect for the weird world of The Addams Family and he seems like a natural pick to direct a film or series centered around the haunting characters.
While it’s slightly disappointing that Burton’s series won’t follow the entire family, if one character had to be chosen, Wednesday and her twisted world is the perfect choice. There’s also the chance that we could see other Addams family members in the series at some point, but with Wednesday set at Nevermore Academy, it doesn’t seem like they’ll be integral to the storyline. Until then, though, we’ll just have to speculate as to which young actress Burton will select to play the titular character. From Netflix’s early description, Wednesday sounds like an exciting new project that will take the iconic character in new directions.
