Wednesday

Wednesday is an American horror comedy streaming television series, based around the character Wednesday Addams of The Addams Family. Produced by MGM Television, the series premiere on Netflix.

Synopsis

Wednesday is expelled from her high school after dumping live piranhas into the school's pool while the boys' water poloteam is practicing in retaliation for the team bullying her brother Pugsley. This leads her parents, Gomez and Morticia Addams, to enroll her in Nevermore Academy in Jericho, Vermont, a school for monstrous outcasts once attended by her parents. Wednesday's cold, emotionless personality and her defiant nature make it difficult for her to connect with her schoolmates and cause her to run afoul of the school's principal. However, she discovers she has psychic abilities that help her solve a local murder mystery with the help of Jericho's sheriff.

Cast

Main

• Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams
• Riki Lindhome as Dr. Valerie Kinbott
• Jamie McShane as Sheriff Donovan Galpin (Season 1; recurring Season 2)
• Hunter Doohan as Tyler Galpin
• Georgie Farmer as Ajax Petropolus
• Moosa Mostafa as Eugene Ottinger
• Emma Myers as Enid Sinclair
• Naomi J. Ogawa as Yoko Tanaka (Season 1)
• Joy Sunday as Bianca Barclay
• Percy Hynes White as Xavier Thorpe (Season 1)
• Gwendoline Christie as Larissa Weems
• Christina Ricci as Marylin Thornhil/Laurel Gates
• Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Addams
• Luis Guzmán as Gomez Addams
• Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley Addams
• Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo as Deputy Santiago
• Steve Buscemi as Barry Dort
• Billie Piper as Capri

Recurring

• Victor Dorobantu as Thing
• Tommie Earl Jenkins as Mayor Noble Walker
• Iman Marson as Lucas Walker
• Johnna Dias-Watson as Divina

Guest stars

• Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester
• George Burcea as Lurch
• William Houston as Joseph Crackstone
• Oliver Watson as Kent
• Calum Ross as Rowan Laslow
• Thandiwe Newton as Dr. Fairburn
• Christopher Lloyd as TBA
• Joanna Lumley as Granny Frump
• Frances O’Connor as TBA
• Haley Joel Osment as TBA
• Evie Templeton as TBA
• Owen Painter as TBA
• Heather Matarazzo as TBA
• Joonas Suotamo as TBA
• Anthony Michael Hall as TBA
• Noah B. Taylor as TBA
• Lady Gaga as TBA^[1]
• Adam McNamara as Lewis Cade

Production

Development

During pre-production on The Addams Family (1991), Tim Burton was approached to direct, but ended up passing on it due to scheduling conflicts with Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), resulting in Barry Sonnenfeld taking the job.^[2] In March 2010, it was announced that Illumination Entertainment had acquired the underlying rights to the Addams Family drawings.^[3] The film was planned to be a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams's original drawings. Burton was set to co-write, co-produce, and possibly direct the film.^[4] In July 2013, it was reported that the film was cancelled,^[5] which, according to Burton, was due to the studio favoring a computer-animated approach over the stop-motion technique.

Casting

The creative team sought a Latina to play the role of Wednesday Addams to align with character Gomez Addams's heritage, an aspect of the character that was already worked into the series' script. In May 2021, Jenna Ortega, who is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, was cast in the role. Millar stated that, upon their first Zoom call together, the creative team knew that "nobody else on this planet" was better suited to portray the character.^[6]

Filming

Principal photography for the first season took place between September 2021 and March 2022 in the Southern Carpathian town of Bușteni, Romania. Filming locations included Cantacuzino Castle, serving as the setting for the fictional Nevermore Academy, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Sinaia railway station, the Bucharest Botanical Garden, Monteoru House, and the historic Olga Greceanu Mansion in Dâmbovița County, standing in for the Gates mansion. Exterior shots of Cantacuzino Castle were supplemented with computer-generated imagery. Other settings, including the entire town of Jericho, were constructed at Buftea Studios. Production designer Mark Scruton based his set design primarily on Charles Addams's original cartoons and drew inspiration from Burton-directed films such as Beetlejuice (1988) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).^[7]

The second season began filming in May 2024 in Ireland. Ortega's schedule for the show was discussed with the filmmakers of the Scream franchise prior to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, leading to Ortega's departure from the upcoming Scream 7 due to the scheduling conflict. By August 2024, they had completed four episodes. Filming for the second series had wrapped by early December 2024 and is set to release in 2025. ^[8]

Music

In December 2021, it was reported that longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman joined the series to compose the original theme and co-compose its score with Chris Bacon. The score features a selection of the series's original score composed by Elfman and Bacon as well as several pop songs, including cello renditions of "Paint It Black" by the Rolling Stones, "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica, and "Physical" by Dua Lipa. The score also incorporates a number of classical works, including The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto, The Carnival of the Animalsby Camille Saint-Saëns, Gnossienne No. 1 by Erik Satie, and "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.^[9]

Release

A first teaser trailer for Wednesday was released on August 17, 2022, followed by a full trailer on October 9 and the unveiling of the series' opening sequence on November 8. Wednesday premiered on November 16, 2022, at Hollywood Legion Theater in Los Angeles. Its eight episodes were released on Netflix on November 23, 2022. On April 23, 2025, a trailer was released, revealing the second season would be split into two parts with the first part releasing on August 6 and the second part releasing on September 3.^[10]

Gallery

Videos

Trivia

• This was Tim Burton’s first tv show ever produced.
• Wednesday's dance from Woe What a Night went viral one month after premiering.
• Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán, Isaac Ordonez, and Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo are being upped to series regulars for Season 2.
• Percy Hynes White and Naomi J Ogawa will not be returning for Season 2, but Jamie McShane has reduced into recurring for Season 2.^[11]

References