‘Wednesday’ Creators Defend Calling Series ‘an 8 Hour Tim Burton Movie’

Tim Burton has called his Netflix series Wednesday an eight hour movie, and the streaming service is going with it. Even creators Al Gough and Miles Millar call Wednesday an eight hour Tim Burton movie. Calling streaming series long movies has become a cliche, but TV veterans Gough and Millar have good reasons to call Wednesday an exception. 

Gough and Millar were guests on The Hollywood Reporter’s TV’s Top Five podcast on Oct. 28 to preview Wednesday. They shared three practical reasons it really is an eight hour movie. 

‘Wednesday’ episodes aren’t standalone 

Gough and Millar created Smallville, which did 22 episodes per year. Those could include the supervillain of the week whom Clark Kent (Tom Welling) dealt with by the end of the hour. In Wednesday, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is investigating a mystery which does not wrap up until the end. 

“Smallville, you’re doing 22 episodes, you’re kind of doing short stories in the world and then you’re linking a season with probably five mythology episodes that can kind of tie everything together,” Gough said on TV’s Top Five. “In this era of streaming TV, it literally is chapters of a book.”

Gough gives a little in that regard. He said the chapters of Wednesday do still feel like episodes. 

“But that being said, when you watch the show, just because we’re old school TV in that, we want to make sure each episode feels distinct and unique,” Gough said. “When you watch the show, I think you can definitely go, ‘That’s the episode where this happens or that happens.’ But then it does feel it’s one big, because it’s a closed mystery show, you are building towards something. It definitely has that long movie feel.”

Wednesday Addams is in every scene of ‘Wednesday’

Gough and Millar also created Into the Badlands, which was an ensemble martial arts show. As opposed to epic series with multiple subplots, Wednesday is really just focused on the young Addams. 

“Also I think because she’s in 95% of the show so you’re kind of following one character through this,” Gough said. “It’s not Game of Thrones or Into the Badlands where you have three or four different stories. You’re following really her through this eight hour journey.”

Tim Burton doesn’t know the difference 

The main reason Wednesday is an eight hour Tim Burton movie is that Burton doesn’t adjust to television. That made Netflix and MGM antsy, but Gough and Millar covered for him.

“Stylistically, it’s a very serious thing,” Millar said. “Tim shot 95% of the show with one camera. There weren’t multiple cameras. Netflix and the studio couldn’t understand. Where’s the coverage? There is no coverage. This is shot like an auteur would shoot a movie. We are TV guys through and through, we love TV, but this was definitely an exceptional circumstance. We don’t say that lightly that it’s an 8 hour Tim Burton movie because it is literally.”