‘Wednesday’: Tim Burton Said He Would Have Dated Wednesday Addams in High School, Netflix Showrunner Said
They’re creepy, and they’re spooky, and The Addams Family continues to live on in the imaginations of viewers almost sixty years after the original show debuted on TV. Recently, Netflix has created another reboot focusing on the daughter of the family, Wednesday. The main character, played by Jenna Ortega, is navigating the terrors of high school in the new series.
The writers of the show had one director in mind whose career has focused on connecting the scary and endearing, but they didn’t know if he’d have any interest in working in TV. It turns out that he did, and his connection with the main character made him sign on.
Burton felt connected to the main character
This isn’t the first time that Burton entertained the idea of working in the Addams Family universe. According to Movie Web, he came close to directing the 1991 movie adaptation starring Christina Ricci as Wednesday. He also nearly helped create a stop-action animated movie about the characters in 2010.
But this time around, it was the script and how it brought Wednesday to life that convinced him to venture into directing for the small-screen. Wednesday’s sober, dark outlook reminded him of himself as a teen.
“When I read this [script], it just spoke to me about how I felt in school and how you feel about your parents, how you feel as a person. It gave the Addams Family a different kind of reality. It was an interesting combination,” he said, tying it to how he experienced high school.
“I felt that feeling of having to be there but not be part of it. They don’t leave you — those feelings — as much as you want them to go. You know, Wednesday and I have the same worldview.”
So connected that he would have asked her out
It seems that Burton felt so close to the character of Wednesday that he even thought they would have made a good couple in high school. Gough explained that when Burton said how much he liked the script, he specifically mentioned how similar he was to her at that age.
“Tim loved the script,” he said. “He felt like he would have dated Wednesday Addams in high school.”
That ship may have sailed, but at least Burton is a part of bringing Wednesday to life in a new way. His style of movie-making is almost guaranteed to create the world of the Addams Family in a fresh, spooky new way. And he probably isn’t the only person who will be smitten with the character all over again.
How Tim Burton was convinced to work on episodic TV
Burton is well known for his ability to create worlds that combine child-like wonder and creepy atmosphere. This made him a natural cause to direct the new series, but there was one problem: he doesn’t typically work on TV.
In a panel discussion at the 2022 New York Comic Con, writer Alfred Gough described how the writing team convinced the accomplished director to sign on for the project. “We had written the script, the first episode, and Tim was always at the top of our list,” he explained.
“People were like, ‘Tim Burtons never gonna do this. He doesn’t do television.’ And we were like, ‘Well, if you don’t ask, the answer’s no.’ And it was during [COVID-19] lockdown, and we sent the script, and four days later, the universe answered.”
Burton’s agent called and told them that he loved the script, and they were off and running.
