Wednesday is a Netflix original supernatural comedic horror series. It is a contemporary rendition of the Addams Family that follows Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) as she attends the boarding school Nevermore Academy, where her parents Gomez (Luis Guzmán) and Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones) also attended. Tim Burton is the series’ executive producer.
The first season of Wednesday follows the title character as she is expelled from school after putting live piranhas into the pool during practice to exact revenge on the water polo team for tormenting Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez). Wednesday’s parents subsequently enroll her at Nevermore Academy, a private school that specialized in training societal “outcasts” like vampires, werewolves, and sirens.
Wednesday grows up and learns to analyze her psychic visions while a monster hunts Jericho and murders her friends.
All too often in stories about teenage girls, the heroine starts out as weak or ugly, and then she grows and blooms into a butterfly. This is not that. What we love about Wednesday is that she is a really strong, independent, opinionated, incredibly smart and funny young woman who is fully realized at the beginning of our story.
1. Tim Burton’s Addams Family project has been in the works for three decades. Originally, Burton declined to film The Addams Family (1991) because he was preoccupied with Batman Returns (1992). Later, he was involved in a stopmotion Addams Family project that was eventually scrapped.
2. Botany instructor Marilyn Thornhill was performed by Christina Ricci, who also portrayed Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993). (1993). Ricci, according to Jenna Ortega, was encouraging on set and never mentioned “her” Wednesday, trusting Ortega to develop her own interpretation of the character. Ricci and Tim Burton previously worked together on the film Sleepy Hollow (1999).
3. Miles Millar, the series’ creator, stated that as soon as they met with Jenna Ortega through Zoom, they knew no one else could portray Wednesday. Millar compares Ortega to a silent film actress because “she’s able to communicate things without words.”
4. Tim Burton also praised Jenna Ortega, calling her one of the most gifted actors he’s ever worked with. Ortega studied German and took cello, archery, and fencing classes to prepare for the part. I felt very close to her, because when I was a child, I used to play in a cemetery near my house, and loved horror movies, and felt like Wednesday in a certain way. And that’s just part of who she is, and it’s part of the Addams Family world, too. That, again, is something that I felt very close to. Tim Burton, Secrets from the Set of Tim Burton and Jenna Ortega’s Addams Family teen reboot.
5. Fans of the Gilmore Girls may identify the town of “Jericho” as Stars Hollow.
It was shot on a Warner Brothers backlot that had previously been utilized for You, Pretty Little Liars, and Vampire Diaries. The Nevermore Academy was filmed mostly in Cantacuzino Castle in Romania.
6. If you look closely, you may notice framed movie stills from Tim Burton’s career in the Weathervane Cafe where Tyler works.
7. Tippi Hedren’s attire in The Birds influenced Gwendoline Christie’s headmistress Weems’ outfit (1963).
8.Jenna Ortega developed her own dance to “Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps for the legendary school dance sequence.
9.While some casual Addams Family fans have expressed confusion about the selection of Luis Guzmán as Gomez, considering previous depictions of the character as a good looking Casanova (for example, Raul Julia’s performances in the 1990s), Gomez was drawn as overweight in Charles Addams’ initial drawings.
Tim Burton was interested in resurrecting this incarnation. Guzmán, who is 66 years old, is also the oldest actor to portray Gomez. Catherine Zeta Jones, at the age of 53, is also the oldest actress to play Morticia.
10.George Burcea is the smallest performer to have ever played Lurch.
He is 6’6″. When Tyler asks “you rang?” in one of the Weathervane sequences, there’s a small Easter egg nod to the character.
11. One of the Nightshades’ (a Nevermore Academy secret club) traditions is finger snapping. This is a tribute to the iconic Addams Family theme tune.
Morticia explains that Wednesday’s name comes from a line of a nursery rhyme that goes “Wednesday’s child is full of woe.” This season’s episode titles all incorporate the word “woe.”