Wednesday, the upcoming eight-episode live action series directed by Tim Burton, based on the character of Wednesday Adams, from the 1991 American supernatural black comedy film The Addams Family, will premiere on Netflix.
The streaming giant along with MGM/UA shared the announcement through a press release on Netflix’s website on Wednesday.
The “coming-of-age” comedy series is based on “everyone’s favourite maiden of the macabre graduate into a full-fledged leading lady,” an adolescent Wednesday Adams.
Tim Burton is bringing Wednesday Addams to Netflix in a live-action coming-of-age series!
Burton will also make his TV directorial debut on the sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery that follows Wednesday as a student at Nevermore Academy pic.twitter.com/8ei3wIUrxq
— Netflix (@netflix) February 17, 2021
The series is a “sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery” narrating Wednesday’s years as a student at the “peculiar” Nevermore Academy. It talks about how Wednesday is mastering her emerging “psychic” ability, “thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorised the local town”, and solve the supernatural mystery that entangled her parents 25 years ago – all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships of the strange and diverse student body.
The Addams Family is based on Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons from 1938-1988. It was first aired in two seasons television series with 30-minutes long episodes, an American macabre or black comedy sitcom created by David Levy and Donald Saltzman, shot in black-and-white. The series aired on ABC from September 1964 to April 1966, for a total of 64 episodes.
The Addams Family once again hit the screen in 1991 as an American supernatural black comedy film based on the cartoons created by Charles Addams and the 1964 television series. Directed by former cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, as his screen directing debut, the film stars Golden Globe-nominated Anjelica Huston for her performance as Morticia Addams.
The story revolves around a macabre, aristocratic family who reconnect with Gomez’s brother Fester Addams, who they believe to be a long-lost relative but is actually the adopted son of a loan shark who intends to trick the Addams family out of their vast wealth and fortune.
The Addams Family had also featured in Scooby-Doo, adapted as an animated sitcom series 1973, and had last released in theatres in 2019 as a computer-animated series.
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The other characters in the family include Morticia Addams, their children Wednesday and Pugsley, close family members Uncle Fester and Grandmama, their butler Lurch, and Pugsley’s pet octopus Aristotle.
Burton, who has previously directed films such as Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), Planet of the Apes (2001), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Alice in Wonderland (2010) is making his television directorial debut with Wednesday.
Screenwriters and producers Al Gough and Miles Millar, the duo who are the makers of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Spider Man-2, Hannah Montana: The Movie, and several others have once again collaborated and pitched Wednesday to the streaming giant.
The streaming date of Wednesday is yet to be announced.