Main

• Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams, a teenager who possesses psychic powers. She is sent to Nevermore Academy for causing mischief at several other schools. Among her other skills, Wednesday is a skilled cellist and speaks fluent Latin, Italian, and German. Ortega also plays Goody Addams, Wednesday's deceased ancestor from the 1600s, whom Wednesday sees in visions of the past.^[4]
  • Karina Váradi portrays a young Wednesday
• Gwendoline Christie as Larissa Weems, the shapeshifting principal of Nevermore Academy and a former student who was Morticia Addams's roommate (season 1)
  • Oliver Wickham portrays a young Larissa Weems
• Riki Lindhome as Dr. Valerie Kinbott, Wednesday's court-ordered therapist from the local town, Jericho (season 1)
• Jamie McShane as Donovan Galpin, Jericho's sheriff who is suspicious of Nevermore Academy and Wednesday specifically
  • Ben Wilson portrays a young Donovan Galpin
• Hunter Doohan as Tyler Galpin, a barista at a local coffee shop and Sheriff Galpin's son who has a romantic interest in Wednesday
• Percy Hynes White as Xavier Thorpe, a student of Nevermore Academy who has the ability to make his art come to life, also a psychic who gets visions through dreams
• Emma Myers as Enid Sinclair, Wednesday's colorful werewolf roommate at Nevermore Academy who attempts to become her friend despite Wednesday's lack of interest
• Joy Sunday as Bianca Barclay, a successful siren student at Nevermore Academy and Xavier's ex-girlfriend
• Georgie Farmer as Ajax Petropolus, a gorgon student at Nevermore Academy who is Enid's crush
• Naomi J. Ogawa as Yoko Tanaka, a vampire student at Nevermore Academy
• Moosa Mostafa as Eugene Ottinger, a student at Nevermore Academy who has the ability to control bees
• Christina Ricci as Marilyn Thornhill / Laurel Gates, the botany teacher at Nevermore Academy and dorm mother of Wednesday and Enid.
• Steve Buscemi (season 2)
• Thandiwe Newton (season 2)

Recurring

• Victor Dorobantu as Thing, a sentient disembodied hand and relative of Wednesday who is sent by Wednesday's parents to watch over her at Nevermore Academy
• Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo as Ritchie Santiago, a deputy of Sheriff Galpin
• Tommie Earl Jenkins as Noble Walker, the mayor and former sheriff of Jericho
  • Ismail Kesu portrays a young Noble Walker
• Iman Marson as Lucas Walker, Noble Walker's son, whose group of friends often runs afoul of Wednesday

Guest

• Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Addams, Wednesday's mother, who attended Nevermore Academy when she was younger and possesses psychic powers similar to her daughter's
  • Gwen Jones portrays a young Morticia Addams
• Luis Guzmán as Gomez Addams, Wednesday's father who also attended Nevermore Academy and is a suspected murderer
  • Lucius Hoyos portrays a young Gomez Addams
• Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley Addams, Wednesday's younger brother
• George Burcea as Lurch, the Addams family's butler^[5]
• Calum Ross as Rowan Laslow, a student at Nevermore Academy who possesses telekinetic powers and causes trouble for Wednesday
• William Houston as Joseph Crackstone, Laurel Gates's Pilgrim ancestor and Jericho's founding father who is intent on killing all outcasts.
• Nitin Ganatra as Dr. Anwar, a mortician who works at Jericho's mortuary
• Lewis Hayes as Garrett Gates, a teenager who Gomez is suspected to have murdered during his time at Nevermore Academy and was Laurel's brother
• Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester, Wednesday's paternal uncle who possesses the ability to generate static electricity

Development

During pre-production on The Addams Family (1991), Tim Burton was approached to direct, but ended up passing on it due to scheduling conflicts with Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), resulting in Barry Sonnenfeld taking the job.^[6][7] In March 2010, it was announced that Illumination Entertainment had acquired the underlying rights to the Addams Family drawings.^[8] The film was planned to be a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams's original drawings. Burton was set to co-write, co-produce, and possibly direct the film.^[9] In July 2013, it was reported that the film was cancelled,^[10] which, according to Burton, was due to the studio favoring a computer-animated approach over the stop-motion technique.^[11]

Showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough started developing story ideas in 2019. They subsequently acquired the rights to the intellectual property before writing a pilot script, which they sent to Burton.^[12] To their surprise, Burton immediately became interested upon receiving the script.^[13] Commenting about his decision to join the project, Burton stated that he could relate to the titular character's worldview and that the script "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."^[11] Millar stated that it was "very important" to the creative team not to emulate the prior films and 1964 television series.^[13] Millar and Gough decided to make the juxtaposition of "outcasts" and "normies", as well as criticism of colonial Americans, major themes in the series.^[14]

In October 2020, Wednesday was initially announced as an unnamed Addams Family project being helmed by Burton. The series's production would be handled by MGM Television, with Burton as director. Gough and Millar would serve as showrunners, while Gough, Millar, and Burton would also be executive producers alongside Gail Berman, Jon Glickman, and Andrew Mittman.^[15] In February 2021, Netflix gave the production a series order consisting of eight episodes.^[16] In August 2021, Kayla Alpert was added as an executive producer and 1.21, Tee and Charles Addams Foundation, and Glickmania were also producing the series.^[17] Deemed his "first real foray into television", Burton directed four out of the eight episodes,^[13] with Gandja Monteiro and James Marshall directing the remaining episodes.^[18] Burton brought on regular collaborator Colleen Atwood as costume designer.^[13]

On possible future seasons, Gough and Millar commented in an interview with Variety, "when we sit down to create a show, it's looking at multiple seasons, ideally. That's never expected, but that's the anticipation that hopefully the show is successful." They further stated that they had "a pretty clear runway" of how future seasons could unfold.^[19] In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gough and Millar stated that the second season would expand upon the friendship between Wednesday and Enid while also evolving Wednesday's relationship with her mother, Morticia.^[20] Ortega stated that the season would "lean into the horror aspect" while "ditching any romantic love interest for Wednesday".^[21] Preparations for a second season commenced in December 2022, following Amazon's acquisition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.^[22] In January 2023, the series was renewed for a second season,^[23] with Ortega now also serving as producer.^[24]

Casting

The creative team sought a Latina to play the role of Wednesday Addams in order to align with character Gomez Addams's heritage, an aspect of the character that was already worked into the series' script.^[26] In May 2021, Jenna Ortega, who is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent,^[26] was cast in the role.^[27] Millar stated that, upon their first Zoom call together, the creative team knew that "nobody else on this planet" was better suited to portray the character.^[28] Ortega said that she was initially hesitant about joining the project due to her past work in teen-oriented Disney Channel shows^[29] and her plans to prioritize film over television work, but decided to join in after meeting Burton through Zoom.^[30] In the beginning of August of that year, Luis Guzmán was cast to guest-star as Gomez Addams,^[17] and Catherine Zeta-Jones was cast as Morticia Addams in an undisclosed capacity.^[31] Later that month, Thora Birch, Riki Lindhome, Jamie McShane, Hunter Doohan, Georgie Farmer, Moosa Mostafa, Emma Myers, Naomi J. Ogawa, Joy Sunday, and Percy Hynes White were announced to be cast as series regulars.^[32] Myers initially auditioned for the titular role before she was cast as Wednesday's roommate Enid.^[33]

In September, Gwendoline Christie and Victor Dorobantu were added to the cast in starring roles while Isaac Ordonez, George Burcea, Tommie Earl Jenkins, Iman Marson, William Houston, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, Oliver Watson, Calum Ross, and Johnna Dias Watson were cast in recurring roles.^[34] In December 2021, Birch left the series, leaving the status of her character, dorm mother Tamara Novak, unclear.^[35] In March 2022, it was announced that Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday Addams in the film The Addams Family and its sequel Addams Family Values (1993), was cast as a series regular, replacing Birch in a similar role.^[36] Commenting on her casting, Ricci stated, "I was really flattered to be asked and to be asked by Tim [Burton]",^[25] with whom she had previously collaborated on Sleepy Hollow (1999).^[37] Ricci was almost unable to accept the role due to possible scheduling conflicts with Showtime series Yellowjackets.^[26] In October, a trailer revealed Fred Armisen to be portraying Uncle Fester, and Ricci's role was confirmed as Marilyn Thornhill.^[38]

In April 2024, Steve Buscemi joined the cast of the series as the new principal of Nevermore Academy,^[39] alongside Thandiwe Newton in an undisclosed role.^[40]

Filming

Principal photography for the first season took place between September 2021 and March 2022 in the Southern Carpathian town of Bușteni, Romania.^[41][42] Filming locations included Cantacuzino Castle, serving as the setting for the fictional Nevermore Academy, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Sinaia railway station, the Bucharest Botanical Garden, Monteoru House, and the historic Olga Greceanu Mansion in Dâmbovița County, standing in for the Gates mansion.^[43] Exterior shots of Cantacuzino Castle were supplemented with computer-generated imagery.^[44] Other settings, including the entire town of Jericho, were constructed at Buftea Studios.^[43][45] Production designer Mark Scruton based his set design primarily on Charles Addams's original cartoons and drew inspiration from Burton-directed films such as Beetlejuice (1988) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).^[46] Ortega called her work on the series "very stressful and confusing" and "the most overwhelming job I've ever had" due to the production's fast-tracked shooting schedule.^[30][47]

To prepare for her role, Ortega learned to play cello and took canoeing, fencing, archery, and German lessons.^[28] According to actress Joy Sunday, the canoeing lessons were especially strenuous, involving the entire cast and some dozen stuntmen racing each other for an hour daily, with days starting as early as 5:30 am.^[48] Ortega avoided talking to Ricci about playing the character during filming in order to achieve her own unique rendition of the role.^[49] She choreographed her dance to the Cramps' "Goo Goo Muck" herself, taking inspiration from Siouxsie Sioux, Bob Fosse, and goth dance club footage from the 1980s.^[50][51] Ortega sought to make Wednesday's characterization consistent, down to changing lines that she felt were unfitting of the character, and with more depth. She stated "you can't lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it's boring and nobody likes you."^[52][30] Scenes featuring Thing, played by Romanian magician Victor Dorobantu, were achieved using a mixture of practical and special effects; Dorobantu wore a blue chroma-key bodysuit that would be edited out in post-production, leaving only his hand exposed. To create the illusion of a severed hand, a prosthetic stump was applied to Dorobantu's hand.^[53]

The second season will be filmed in Ireland, with filming scheduled to begin in April 2024.^{[54][55][56][57]} Ortega's schedule with the show was discussed with the filmmakers of the Scream franchise prior to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, leading to Ortega's departure from the upcoming Scream 7 due to the scheduling conflict.^[58]

Music

In December 2021, it was reported that longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman joined the series to compose the original theme^[59] and co-compose its score with Chris Bacon.^[18] The score features a selection of the series's original score composed by Elfman and Bacon as well as several pop songs, including cello renditions of "Paint It Black"^[60] by the Rolling Stones, "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica, and "Physical" by Dua Lipa.^[61][62] The score also incorporates a number of classical works, including The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto, The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns, Gnossienne No. 1 by Erik Satie, and "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.^[63]

Led by two singles,^[64] Wednesday's 48-track soundtrack was released by Lakeshore Records on November 23, 2022,^[61] and a four-track extended play featuring covers of classical and pop songs was released on November 30.^[63] In his review of the series, Tony Sokol of Den of Geek called the score "a major character, not only thematically, but as an emotional delivery system", making "the chills creepier, the jokes funnier, and the tingles tangible".^[65] Linda Codega of Gizmodo called the cello segments "memorable" and the score "occasionally-magnificent".^[66] Writing for IGN, Amelia Emberwing described the combination of Elfman's score with Burton's material as "[going] together like peanut butter and jelly" and the score overall as "a stunner".^[67]

Audience viewership

According to data from users of TV Time collected by Whip Media, Wednesday had the second-most pre-release followers of any Netflix original series on the platform, behind only The Witcher;^[75] it ultimately debuted at number one on Netflix in 83 countries.^[76] The series holds the record of most hours viewed in a week for an English-language Netflix series with a total 341 million hours watched in its first week of release, amounting to more than 50 million households, and passing prior record holder Stranger Things 4's 335 million hours.^[77] Nielsen Media Research reported a combined watch time of 6 billion minutes within its first week of release, making it the second-biggest streaming week ever recorded by the firm.^[78] Three weeks after its release, it became the second-most watched English-language Netflix series in the history of the platform, reaching an estimated 150 million households and totaling 1 billion viewing hours by December 2022.^[79] Jacob Stolworthy of The Independent called the series's popularity "unprecedented" and suggested that it could jumpstart development of several other spin-off television series.^[80]

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 72% approval rating and an average rating of 6.8/10, based on 100 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Wednesday isn't exactly full of woe for viewers, but without Jenna Ortega in the lead, this Addams Family-adjacent series might as well be another CW drama."^[81] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 66 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[82]

Ed Power of The Daily Telegraph gave Wednesday four out of five stars and called it "an addictively rococo romp that unfolds like a cross between Euphoria and Hotel Transylvania".^[83] John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal commended Ortega's "charismatic performance" and called the series "often delightful, despite its deliberate darkness".^[84] In his "B"-review for The Detroit News, Tom Long deemed the series visually appealing and described Ortega's deadpan as "just as elastic as it needed to be" and her performance overall as "consistently [pushing] outside the caricature enough to keep things lively".^[85] Writing for RogerEbert.com, Cristina Escobar similarly praised Ortega's deadpan humor and commended the series' "satisfactory" ending.^[86] While finding that the series would not be "what real fans of Charles Addams and his characters are looking for", Mike Hale of The New York Times called the series "tolerable" despite "satisfying only on the level of formulaic teenage romance and mystery" and compared it to the Harry Potter franchise.^[87] Commenting on its tone, Jesse Hassenger of TheWrap described the four episodes directed by Burton as feeling more like Veronica Mars than Sleepy Hollow.^[88] Nick Hilton of The Independent gave the series two out of five stars and criticized the series's tone as "relentlessly quippy Gen Z" and its performances as "more two-dimensional than the New Yorker comic strip in which the characters first appeared".^[89]

Accolades