They're creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky… and now The Addams Family are back on TV once again.
The hair-raising household have been fascinating fans around the world since 1938. And now the freaky family are being brought back to life by gothic movie maestro Tim Burton for the new Netflix spin-off series, Wednesday.
As the name suggests, the show will put woeful daughter Wednesday Addams at the centre of the action.
Jenna Ortega, 19, will take on the lead role in the autumn reboot and she will be joined by Welsh favourite Catherine Zeta-Jones, 52, as gothic mum Morticia.
Narcos actor Luis Guzman, 65, will play pinstripe suit-wearing dad Gomez, while Isaac Ordonez, 12, stars as hapless son Pugsley.
And whether it’s on TV, film, cartoon or on stage, no Addams Family spin-off would be complete without mad Uncle Fester, creepy butler Lurch and hirsute Cousin Itt.
Netflix has remained tight-lipped over who will play Uncle Fester, but veteran actor Johnny Depp is among those rumoured to be in the running.
He has a long history of working with director Burton and many fans believe a reunion could well be on the cards. Wednesday is the brainchild of Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, who created superhero series Smallville.
They sent their script to Burton – who famously turned down The Addams Family movie in 1991 – and were shocked when he called them back just days later.
Miles said he and Alfred were keen to create a show “that didn’t feel like a remake or a reboot”.
“It’s something that lives within the Venn diagram of what happened before, but it’s its own thing,” he explained. “It’s not trying to be the movies or the 60s TV show. That was very important to us and very important to Tim.”
So what can we expect from the new series? Well, we will see Wednesday try to master her emerging psychic abilities after a number of murders in the small town where she’s been sent to boarding school.
She will also struggle to step out of the shadow of her glamorous mum Morticia, and butt heads with her little brother Pugsley. But at the centre of the show is the Addams Family we know and love – the kooky outcasts who stick together.
“Every family is weird and this one happens to be extremely weird, but they love each other,” Miles said. “That’s ultimately what it’s about – they always have each other’s backs. It’s unconditional love.”
Wednesday will air on Netflix later this year and will see the Addams Family go head-to-head with ghoulish TV rivals The Munsters, who will also make a public return with a new movie.
And while the cast of Wednesday is all-new, one familiar face will be making an appearance on the show. Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday in the live-action adaptation of the cartoons, 1991’s The Addams Family and its sequel, Addams Family Values, returns.
Although she will be playing a different character to before, Christina told how she was thrilled to be asked to appear in Wednesday as she has a personal connection to the Addams Family.
“It’s such a fun world,” she said. “I’ve always viewed myself as a kind of a natural contrarian and so being in a world where everybody’s thrilled to be doing the wrong thing… it’s just great for me. I love it.”
The actress also told how she couldn’t turn down the opportunity to work with Tim Burton.
“I was so honoured to be asked by him because he is a genius,” she said.
“And then also to be asked to be a part of the new version of this thing that is a huge part of my identity and my history in my life… I mean, I know they didn’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but I was really touched by it. I felt like it was very nice. My character is outrageous and fun and different than anything I’ve done.”
Christina is also sure that her old character of Wednesday will be in safe hands with Scream star Jenna. “I just had a really lovely experience with Jenna, who is amazing,” she said. “I think now people have a taste of her Wednesday, and it’s gonna be fantastic. She is really incredible.”
The Addams Family – which recounts the adventures of a group of ghouls and monsters who think they are the normal ones – started life as a cartoon series in the high-brow New Yorker magazine.
It was created by cartoonist Charles ‘Chas’ Addams, who was born into a well-connected New Jersey family in 1903. Addams loved coffins, ghost stories, cemeteries and spooky old houses, which he often broke into and explored.
He also liked to scare people and loved hiding in his family’s dumbwaiter so he could leap out and frighten relatives. Addams’ satirical inversion of the traditional American family was a big hit and inspired a never-ending series of spin-offs.
A TV show first aired in 1964 followed by two big-budget 1990s movies and two animated feature films in 2019 and 2021.
The franchise has certainly been a money spinner, too. Artist Addams made $1million from the initial cartoons and subsequent TV series before this death in 1988, aged 76.
The 1991 film The Addams Family – which starred Anjelica Huston as Morticia and the late Raul Julia as Gomez – raked in $192million at the box office, while its sequel, Addams Family Values, coined $111million.
A 2019 animated version of the show – in which Charlize Theron voiced Morticia – took home $200million and a 2021 follow-up made $120million.
