It’s been nearly a year and a half now since we shared the news that Beetlejuice, Corpse Bride, and ‘89 Batman director Tim Burton has a new TV adaptation of Charles Addams’ comic strip kooks The Addams Family in the works over at Netflix. And in the time since, casting announcements and clues as to the plot of the show – titled Wednesday – have only served to increase the buzziness surrounding our first live-action Addams offering since Barry Sonnenfeld’s iconic 90s duology. The latest announcement – one that every fan of those two cult classics has been dreaming of – has kicked our excitement for the series into overdrive.
Christina Ricci is back, everybody! Having recently lit up our screens in the brilliant Yellowjackets, Deadline reports that Ricci has joined the cast of Burton’s upcoming series, filling the hole left in the show by Thora Birch’s exit from the production mid-shoot due to personal reasons.
Though Ricci isn’t reprising her role as original 90s Goth girl Wednesday Addams – Scream queen Jenna Ortega has that honour – she won’t just be making a fleeting appearance either. Understandably, the folks over at Netflix are keen to keep her role hush-hush for the time being, but we do know that Ricci -– who’s been quietly filming over in Romania with the rest of the cast these past few weeks – will be a series regular, playing an all-new, original character in the coming-of-age comedy.
Taking a new approach to the Addams, Wednesday – written by Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Millar – is set to follow the family’s wayward daughter during her high school years at Nevermore Academy, where she’ll learn to master her psychic powers as she tries to stop a slew of monstrous murders, while simultaneously investigating a supernatural mystery that affected her family years previously.
Wednesday not only marks Ricci’s return to the Addams Family fold, but it also sees Luis Guzman and Catherine Zeta-Jones take on the roles of Gomez and Morticia Addams, Knives Out star Riki Lindhome appearing as Dr. Valerie Kinbott, and Star Wars and Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie featuring as Nevermore principal and Morticia’s longtime rival Larissa Weems.
We haven’t had word on when the show will be released just yet, but with the cast stacking up nicely, Burton steering the ship, and the promise of a Ricci return, we’ve got a feeling we’re in for something creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky, and in fact all together ooky when Wednesday eventually arrives on our screens. Click click.