Today, Netflix releases the first official trailer for Tim Burton's Addams family spinoff series Wednesday. The Addams Family is one of America's most iconic fictional families, as they have existed in one form or another for nearly a century. While not necessarily monstrous themselves, the family, including parents Morticia and Gomez and children Pugsley and Wednesday, is thoroughly eerie and delights in everything creepy. They originated in a 1938 New Yorker cartoon created by Charles Addams, and were further popularized by an ABC sitcom in 1964. Since then, the Addams family has been featured in animated series, films both live-action and animated, a revival series called The New Addams Family, and even a stage musical featuring Cheers star Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia.
The latest adaptation of the material comes in the form of Wednesday, which was created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, directed by Burton, and is coming to Netflix in late 2022. The show will follow the daughter of the famous family as she navigates high school at Nevermore Academy, attempts to harness her nascent psychic powers, and solves a series of murders that may just tie in with a mystery that has haunted her family since before she was born. The show will star Jenna Ortega as Wednesday, featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley, and Luis Guzmán as Gomez, along with an ensemble that includes Riki Lindhome, Hunter Doohan, Christina Ricci, and Game of Thrones and The Sandman star Gwendoline Christie.
Today, one day after sharing some new promotional photos for the series, Netflix finally drops the first official Wednesday trailer. The opening scene shows Wednesday stalking the halls of the satirically preppy Nancy Reagan High School and dropping two bags of piranhas in the pool during swim practice to get revenge on her brother's bullies. For obvious reasons, she is transferred to Nevermore Academy, where Morticia and Gomez met, and where she can finally fit in among peers that understand her. Now that she is surrounded by "mystery, mayhem, and murder," she may truly have found where she belongs. Check out the trailer below:
Although it's presented in a classically Burtonesque manner that rides the knife's edge of being family-friendly, the trailer for Wednesday makes a big statement: the show is not at all afraid to get bloody and dark. Although it is presented in a cartoonish manner and takes place just below the frame, the trailer more or less explicitly presents a teen boy getting his groin mauled by a piranha. This is a bold mission statement for the series, which is looking to bring The Addams Family to a darker and slightly more mature, but no less fun, tone.
This trailer seems perfectly designed to appeal to fans of The Addams Family who want a little more bite after the extremely family-friendly pair of animated films put out by Universal in 2019 and 2021. Wednesday is also looking to be a return to form for Burton. The Beetlejuice and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure director is well known for his macabre stylings, but those have taken a backseat in the last decade or so as the director has turned his attention to projects like the art biopic Big Eyes and the Disney live-action remake of Dumbo.
Source: Netflix