‘Wednesday’: The Reason the ‘Addams Family’ Series Premieres After Halloween
Netflix fans are eagerly awaiting Wednesday. The only problem is, it premieres over Thanksgiving weekend. There are two very good reasons for that. Hopefully, fans can keep themselves busy this Halloween and be ready for the return of Wednesday Addams next month.
Wednesday creators Al Gough and Miles Millar appeared on the TV’s Top Five podcast on Oct. 28 to preview the show. They explained why Halloween wasn’t an option. Wednesday premieres Nov. 23 on Netflix.
‘Wednesday’ wasn’t done in time for Halloween
Jenna Ortega plays Wednesday Addams, now bringing her macabre sensibilities to boarding school. While it would have been fun to relish in Wednesday’s shenanigans on Halloween, the simple fact is the show isn’t quite finished yet.
“Some of that has to just do with post production schedules and when we could have the show ready,” Gough said on TV’s Top Five.
Thanksgiving is a good time for Wednesday Addams too
Despite the spooky connections between Wednesday and Halloween, October 31, 2022 is a Monday night. Wednesday is a family show and Netflix wanted to take advantage of a holiday in which kids were out of school and parents had off from work.
“There is part of the show too, it is really an all audience show,” Gough said. “I know Halloween seems like the obvious time for an Addams Family show. Totally understand that but Thanksgiving does sort of give you a time when the whole family’s at home and has the ability to watch it together.”
Cobra Kai released seasons 3 and 4 over New Year’s weekend for the same reason, though back to school time of September didn’t seem to hurt season 5. Also, Thanksgiving has a tradition in The Addams Family thanks to Wednesday’s Thanksgiving play in Addams Family Values. The live-action films were both November releases, too.
Developing the show took a long time
Wednesday spent a long time in development, too. Gough and Millar’s Into the Badlands ended in 2019. When they had the idea, securing the rights to The Addams Family was complicated.
It turns out MGM had the rights because they were doing the animated movies. So we pitched it over there to then president of production Steve Stark. He loved the idea and then we pitched it to Kevin Miserocchi who runs the Addams estate. He loved it because for him it felt a little more sophisticated than the animated movies. He knew Charles Addams. He worked with him so he said this feels something in the vein of what they want to do, and obviously it expanded the franchise. Then of course the pandemic hit, but we took the time during the pandemic to write the series.
Al Gough, TV’s Top Five podcast, 10/28/22
Millar added that Wednesday is carving new territory in The Addams Family.
“For us, it was also about finding a character we thought could sustain a series,” Millar said. “Like we did with Smallville, find a character in a part of their life that hadn’t been seen before, have the luxury of writing that part of someone’s story. So that was really what I think struck us about Wednesday. She’s such an iconic character but you never really knew anything about her post-adolescence. She’s always this 10-year-old girl in people’s minds so what would it be like to see her as a teenager? That was what inspired us.”
