Spoiler alert: The next article discusses the entirety of Netflix’s “Wednesdays.”
In the spring of 2019, “Smallville” creators Al Gough and Miles Millar pitched the idea for what would become Netflix’s fictional hit “Wednesday”. The pitch, which began as a six-word-long concept centering on a teenage version of the sardonic Addams family offspring, kicked off a three-year process that culminated in an eight-month-long shoot on location in Romania. featuring Tim. Burton’s first foray into TV in 30 years and a star turn by lead actress Jenna Ortega.
After tracking down adaptation rights-holders at MGM (which released 2019’s animated “The Addams Family”), the company — under then-head of scripted television Steve Stark — agreed to finance the writers’ room because both pitched the series.
“We say in typical Wednesday Addams fashion that we probably had one of the first Zoom rooms as our room started the week of lockdown,” Gough said. “We had 10 weeks of writers room, I already had the entire Bible, and we’d already written the episodes.”
While the initial pitch included the setting of Nevermore Academy, a mythical boarding school filled with outcasts such as goblins and vampires, Miller said the pair “wrestled” with the concept, wondering whether it was “too cool”. ‘Harry Potter’ or very Hogwarts”. before settling on the idea that the location would provide a “gothic space” for the soiree of the Addams family without her relatives in the picture.
Over the decades, the single, off-kilter clan has been depicted many times after Charles Addams’ original 1938 New Yorker illustration, which served as inspiration for the Netflix show and overturned the idea of the traditional nuclear family . Even after the beloved film Wednesday starring Christina Ricci in 1991, “The Addams Family” musical based on the Broadway phenomenon is the No. 1-produced high school musical nationwide and has been for nearly a decade — a fact that pleases Gough and Miller as well. did not get .
Miller told TheWrap, “It’s a smorgasbord of tones: It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s emotional, some scary elements, creepy and creepy and all those things you love about The Addams Family, but I Looks like it’s advanced to a new generation.” “There’s an edge to it, a lot of genuine emotion. I think at the end of episode eight people will be surprised that they feel the emotional impact of the characters and what happens to them, and it was certainly our intention to add complexity to the situation. What exactly will Wednesday be like? She is a very difficult character in the context of the modern world, and how does she react to different people? She’s always been around her family, so to have her somewhere else felt like we were adding something to the Addams family lore.
Burton, who produced and directed four episodes, was always the “first choice” for the pair. A year after the initial concept was born, Gough and Millar sent four scripts to Burton’s agent, who liked it and forwarded it to him.
“So all of a sudden, we were on FaceTime with Tim Burton, and he was in his garden with the dinosaur topiary behind him, very on brand for Tim,” Gough recalled. “He goes, ‘I read the script, it really spoke to me, I would have dated Wednesday Adams in high school’ — we got him at the right time. And he committed on the spot.
Even though Burton only had a directing role in half the series, he was in Bucharest during the entire shoot, both describing him as “very active” and “involved” with the project.
“People had approached Burton about The Addams Family before, but he said it was always too cartoony and based on sight gags for him,” Gough told the Oscar-nominated “Edward Scissorhands” filmmaker.
Once Burton signed on to the project, he brought with him frequent collaborators and veterans of their respective fields, costume designer Colleen Atwood and composer Danny Elfman, whose work was complemented by a full orchestra in Bucharest.
“It was so fun, getting a call, and the fact that it’s inspired by Charles Adams — I already knew it was going to be really fun and second nature to me and a part of my own life.” ,” Elfman told TheWrap.
That excitement — of being involved in the production of the series — is something cast member Gwendoline Christie holds dear.
“One day I was walking in the countryside with some friends and I got a text saying, Tim Burton wants to talk to you about his new project. And this is the Addams Family. And my heart burst with complete and utter joy because I’ve wanted to work with Tim Burton for the rest of my life,” she said. “What Tim does brilliantly is he explores and celebrates the outsider, but also illuminates it with real humanity. And I think he’s truly one of our great writers.” is one that has managed to achieve this huge, mainstream success because what it has managed to translate are some of the universal themes that connect us as human beings, and also delight us in a dazzling and banging way. Let’s do it. Basic visual perception. So I was over the moon.
Shooting on location in Romania allowed the country’s neo-Gothic architecture to enter and influence the world of the show, with the Carpathian Mountains and Peles Castle (which inspired the castle in “Dracula”) providing the backdrop for the re-imagining of the Addams Family. served as. At the same time, everything – including the giant Nevermore – was built from scratch inside a studio.
“The best thing about it was – it sounds bad at first – we were all alone,” laughed Hunter Doohan (who plays Tyler). “But then we all bonded with our cast members so quickly because it was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know a single soul in this town.’
Luis Guzmán, who portrays a new version of the always-sentimental Gomez Addams, had a different take on the shoot: “When I found out the story takes place in Vermont I was so pissed off — I live in Vermont! We Could have shot it in Vermont? Are you kidding me? But no, Romania was great,” he joked.
The actor reminded Jayanti of the other cast members on the shoot, saying, “I welcome the opportunity to be a part of this eccentric family… I’m not going to lie to you, I’m like a kid working in a candy store every day.” , It’s beautiful – putting on the costume, putting on that wig, you couldn’t ask for more.
When it came time to craft the series’ visual and sensory details, the process was similar to the show’s central tenets—both a retelling and homage to the different generations of the Addams family that came before it.
“She starts off as a Wednesday at an American school, with her typical Wednesday outfit where she’s standing in the middle of all the kids and their hipster, American colors, and then she goes to Nevermore and the other gets her [there], she gets the uniform that’s her special uniform,” Atwood said describing the costume approach. “So immediately you’re in a new world with her. Her off-duty and her casual clothes became a big part of the story — running around, doing stuff — so we could incorporate contemporary fashion.
The Oscar-winning “Chicago” designer continued, “Jenna’s influence on the character was so strong, she was so sure of who Wednesday was from the beginning, that it just kind of flowed into the fitting.”
Costume design also played a key role in the portrayal of other characters, such as the iconic Morticia Addams (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones), whose signature plunging black dress Atwood was thrilled to remodel for the modern world. The same was true for Christie’s creation of Larissa Weems, the principal at Nevermore Academy, whose personality and appearance were heavily influenced by an old poster, Atwood’s from Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”, featuring a woman with a high collar and an updo. Was.
“What she does is close to witchcraft, because she can completely change bodies,” Christie said of Atwood, whom she called a “legend.” “She’s one of the most collaborative costume designers I’ve ever worked with, which I was really overwhelmed by. It was such a privilege. She wanted to know what I thought. She has a variety of references that I’ve never seen characters before that are so totally appropriate and totally specific and sometimes ambiguous… She made me feel beautiful, and she really worked with my best assets and got into this character physically. And nailing her presence… and I’ve never felt more beautiful on screen than I have before.”
Attention to detailing was also noted by Christie, who originated the idea of adorning her character with “surrealistic” haute jewelry by Schiaparelli, whose designer, Daniel Rosebery, is a friend of the “Game of Thrones” alumna.
“We have a bracelet in the eye and so I liked the idea of being active and always watching,” she explained. “And so no matter where she was, Larissa had a 360-degree view of what was going on. But Larissa also often wears a Gemini necklace, which is definitely duality and twins and so we have that duality.” is imprisoned in the piece of the necklace she wears by Schiaparelli, so Larissa’s shapeshifting and dual spirit are always hidden in plain sight.
Sonically, Elfman said, it was about taking elements of the original Addams Family tune and creating “almost an alternate universe-like, side part”. “We had to give it our own take on the music, but every now and then, we just applied a little bit of snap-snap because that original theme is so great, but it’s easiest to make it go ‘there’. Makes the subject. ,
Another standout element of “Wednesday” is, of course, the Thing, drawn and played by Victor Dorbobuntu, a former magician. The artist began the process “from scratch”, creating the strange assistant’s form with the VFX team and improvising a form of sign language that enabled the amputated hand to communicate and gesture.
He told TheWrap, “Everyone tried to make this character appear natural and human.” “I tried to find anything I could get my hands on. I studied all of Christopher Hart’s works, [who played Thing in the ‘90s films], I documented everything, I watched all the movies that have hands and severed hands, even zombie movies. I tried to take a little bit from each one.”
When it came down to the grand finale, with Tyler revealed as the malicious, easily manipulated Hyde, the form of the monster is thoroughly Burtonian, Miller said.
“He called us over one afternoon for a monster convention, he actually did a bunch of sketches. And he had this one watercolor, and it was awesome,” Miller explained. “It was the silhouette of the actual monster in the show. Was. And he did it. He stayed up all night painting this little thing and that’s basically what it became.
Naturally, there’s no point talking about “Wednesday” without its title character, whom Ortega first brought to life as a teenager. The “Scream 5” actress previously discussed the difficulty of nailing a character — someone who displays little emotion, but must also grow in incremental ways to make her a compelling protagonist. It was a huge task for anyone involved, and was further complicated by a separate shoot in a country feeling the effects of the war in Ukraine and a bout of COVID.
In praise of Ortega, Gough said, “She brought intensity and intelligence to it.” “We were all trying to make sure that Wednesday would always be Wednesday … that she wouldn’t turn into Nancy Drew.”
At the end of the show’s eight episodes, Wednesday performs a “small” character arc – when she hugs her roommate Enid (Emma Myers); It was essential to Miller that the personality not “soften” during the series’ revelations.
“It was madness, and the show was huge,” Miller said. “It was overwhelming… It was a very difficult shoot.”
Gough said, “But she was absolutely a trooper and really carried on and I think she’s phenomenal.”
Drew Taylor contributed to this report.