The streamer commissioned eight episodes of the drama derived from the ‘Addams Family’ by producers Al Gough and Miles Millar.
Tim Burton is officially revisiting The Addams Family.
Netflix distributed a direct order for the eight-episode series to Wednesday, a live action branch of The Addams Family, director Tim Burton and producers Al Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville, Into the Badlands)
The series is described as an investigative mystery, supernaturally infused, mapping the years of Wednesday Addams as a student at Nevermore Academy. Wednesday’s attempts to master his emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous wave of deaths that terrified the local city and solve the supernatural mystery that enveloped his parents 25 years ago – all while navigating his complicated new relationships at Nevermore.
Burton is assigned to direct and produce the series. Gough and Millar will serve as showrunners and executive producers alongside Andrew Mittman (The Addams Family, Alphas), Kevin Miserocchi (Tee and Charles Addams Foundation), Kayla Alpert (Code Black, awake all night), Jonathan Glickman for Glickmania (Addams Family 2) and Gail Berman (Addams Family, Alphas). The series comes from MGM / UA Television.
Wednesday it was brought to market late last year and became the source of a bidding war between streamers, with Netflix winning over several other bidders for the property that marks Burton’s first foray into TV. Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Sweeney Todd, Batman) was previously attached to target an animated 3D stop-motion shot The Addams Family almost a decade ago, but the appeal never materialized.
Created by cartoonist Charles Addams in 1938, the comic has been adapted for cinema and TV several times over the years. John Astin and Carolyn Jones starred in a live action TV series for ABC in the 1960s. An animated series followed in the 1970s, before the famous family revived in the 1990s with a pair of films starring Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia and Christina Ricci (as Wednesday). This feature inspired an animated TV series with Astin reprising his role. In the late 90s, Tim Curry and Daryl Hannah starred in a direct-to-video feature film and a short live action series. More recently, Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth brought The Addams Family to Broadway.
For Gough and Millar, however, Wednesday marks the last franchise the duo brought to television. They told the famous story of the origin of Superman on The WB Network / CW’s Smallville and best-selling book franchise adapted The Shannara Chronicles for MTV. Longtime contributors most recently directed AMC’s Into the Badlands. They are represented by the WME.
Burton, also represented by the WME, counts resources Dumbo, Miss Peregrine’s home for quirky children, Alice through the looking glass and countless others on its impressive list of credits.