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May 12 | 4 min readSixty years after she first appeared on black-and-white tellies, original emo child Wednesday Addams is finally getting her live-action, coming-of-age TV series - and it looks unmissable.
The maiden of macabre, previously played on screen by Lisa Loring, Christina Ricci, and Chloë Grace Moretz, is being updated for 2022 with legendary director Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Batman) making his TV directorial debut on the spooky series.
Rather than being set within the walls of the Addams Family Mansion, this new eight-part series will focus on the unsmiling Wednesday and her time at Nevermore Academy.
Netflix has revealed the following description of the series…
Wednesday is a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting 16-year-old Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Season One will follow Wednesday as she attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the murder mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago — all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships at Nevermore.
Wednesday: Secrets from the Set with Jenna Ortega and Tim Burton
Who is playing Wednesday Addams?
Jenna Ortega is the latest actress to play the role of Wednesday Addams.
You may have previously seen Ortega in You, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, Jennifer Garner’s Yes Day, Jane the Virgin or Scream (2022).
Netflix has released an 'Inside the Character' film with Tim Burton, Catherine Zeta Jones and Ortega explaining how this version of the character will be different to any we've seen before.
"This is really a show about exploring her journey into adult life," says showrunner Alfred Gough".
Fellow showunner Miles Millar adds: "It was really important to us that this wasn't a remake or reboot. This is a new chapter in Wednesday Addams life."
Talking about the iconic role, Ortega said: "Wednesday is currently a teenager, and we've never seen her as a teenager before. Her snarky, snide remarks might not necessarily sound as charming when they're coming from somebody who should probably know better than a 10-year-old girl.
"That was a balancing act. We didn’t want to make her sound like every other teenage girl, but we also didn’t want to make her too ignorant. And we've never seen her on screen this much. Any other time you've seen Wednesday, she's been the one-liner, the end of a joke, she always hits it, and I think that's what people really love about her.
"But in this show, every scene is Wednesday. There's an opportunity to give her a bit more dimension, and she becomes a bit more of a real person, which I don't think we've ever seen before."
When is Wednesday released on Netflix
Netflix
Watch Wednesday now, exclusively on Netflix.
All episodes of the sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery have been released at launch.
Wednesday episodes
Wednesday season 1 has eight episodes. The full details and titles are below:
- Episode 1 - Wednesday's Child Is Full Of Woe (Directed by Tim Burton)
- Episode 2 - Woe is the Loneliest Number (Directed by Tim Burton)
- Episode 3 - Friend or Woe (Directed by Tim Burton)
- Episode 4 - Woe What a Night (Directedby Tim Burton)
- Episode 5 - You Reap What You Woe (Directed by Gandja Monteiro)
- Episode 6 - Quid Pro Woe (Directed by Gandja Monteiro)
- Episode 7 - If You Don't Woe Me By Now (Directed by James Marshall)
- Episode 8 - A Murder of Woes (Directed by James Marshall)
Wednesday trailer: The new Addams Family
Mayhem, mystery and murder! Netflix dropped the first official full trailer for the twisted new series from Tim Burton, Wednesday, on 17 August.
The eight-episode series is coming to Netflix this autumn.
Who is in the Wednesday cast? Meet the new Addams Family
Netflix
Full details on the Wednesday cast
The TV series has an impressive cast of A-list talent and rising stars.
The cast includes:
- Jenna Ortega - Plays Wednesday Addams
- Isaac Ordonez - Plays Pugsley Addams
- Catherine Zeta Jones – Plays Morticia Addams
- Luis Guzman – Plays Gomez Addams
- Gwendoline Christie - Plays Principal Larissa Weems
- Cristina Ricci (Casper, Sleepy Hollow) - Plays Marilyn Thornhill
- Hunter Doohan (Your Honor) - Plays Tyler Galpin
- Georgie Farmer (Treadstone) - Plays Ajaz Petropolus
- Moosa Mostafa (The Last Bus) - Plays Eugene Ottinger
- Emma Myers (Taste of Christmas) - Plays Enid Sinclair
- Naomi J. Ogawa (Skylin3s) - Plays Yoko Tanaka
- Joy Sunday (Dear White People) - Plays Bianca Barclay
- Percy Hynes White (The Gifted) - Plays Xavier Thorpe
- Riki Lindhome (Knives Out) - Plays Dr Valerie Kinbott
- Jamie McShane (Mank) - Plays Sheriff Galpin
- Victor Teodor Dorobantu - Plays Thing
- Calum Ross - Plays Rowan Laslow
- Luyunda Unati Lewis-Nyawo - Plays Deputy Rita Santiago
Netflix
Gwendoline Christie invites us to Nevermore Academy
If you're not already excited about Wednesday, this cool video featuring Game of Thrones and The Sandman icon Gwendoline Christie should tip you over the edge.
In character as headmistress Larissa Weems, Christie invites fans to sign up for Nevermore Academy, the school at the centre of the Wednesday series.
An official Nevermore Academy website has also been set up for fans to join in the fun and learn more about the tone of the show's humour. For example, you can list your favourite school subjects as "Normie/Outcast Relations" or "vampire Sex Ed".
Wednesday Adams and Thing - Addams Family 2022 clip
Get your first proper look at Jenna Ortega in action as Wednesday in an exclusive clip revealed by Netflix, which also features the iconic Addams Family character Thing.
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Is Cristina Ricci in Wednesday?
Getty
Fans of the classic 1991 Addams Family movie will be delighted to hear that Cristina Ricci is appearing in this new series.
She won’t be appearing as a version of Wednesday, the character she is arguably best known for playing, but will play a new character in the series, Marilyn Thornhill.
Ricci replaced Thora Birch (Hocus Pocus) who pulled out of the project.
The history of The Addams Family in TV and movies
The Addams Family was originally a comic strip, first published The New Yorker magazine in the 1930s.
The comic introduced us to parents Gomez and Morticia Addams, their children Wednesday and Pugsley and extended family members Uncle Fester, Grandmama, butler Lurch, Cousin Itt and the mysterious disembodied hand, Thing.
The first screen adaptation was a US TV series in 1964, followed by animated series in 1973 and 1992.
It also got a live-action TV series in 1998, The New Addams Family.
On the big screen, Angelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd and Cristina Ricci had big success with the 1991 and 1993 films The Addams Family and Addams Family Values. There was also a straight-to-video film in 1998 starring Tim Curry and Daryl Hannah in the lead roles.
The Addams Family were rebooted in 2019 with a new animated film voiced by Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Snoop Dogg, Allison Janney and Bette Midler. A sequel was released in 2021.
The 2019 movie is streaming now on Netflix.
There is also a stage musical of The Addams Family, which pre-empts this new series by focusing on a grown-up Wednesday's divided loyalties when she falls in love with a 'normal' person and introduces him to her family.
How to watch Wednesday
Wednesday launched on Wednesday (geddit!) 23 November, exclusively on Netflix.
All episodes are streaming now.
