Tim Burton Developing ‘Addams Family’ Series, 'Wednesday' Starring Jenna Ortega

[Pennywise]

Ugh!!!!

 

[Lily Adler]

Yep, Thanksgiving release like the 90s movies.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

Ugh so close yet so far away…

 

[Wheels]

Release date!

October is loaded already with stuff Netflix wants to focus on.

 

[Pennywise]

 

[The Joker]

Oh my gosh she's just perfect as Wednesday.

 

[Pennywise]

Oh my gosh she's just perfect as Wednesday.

Indeed, she is!

So excited for this to come out!

 

[Wheels]

Jenna Ortega is nailing this.

 

[Albright]

err end of November?
I have an ass full of other **** to watch during Holiday season

 

[Pennywise]

 

[Pennywise]

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

They're hyping it up so it has to be somebody significant to the Burton on Addams Family stable. DeVito, reprisal by Lloyd, Keaton, someone completely out of left field?

 

[Pennywise]

 

[Pennywise]

Wasn’t expecting that SNL alum as Fester, but I dig it! Seeing Ricci finally is great too!

Jenna is going to be the highlight, though!

 

[Sithborg]

I wouldn't call Armisen some great big casting get that required all the secrecy. Still, looks like he is going to be good.

Fun seeing Ricci. I laughed at Enid's colored claws.

 

[Pennywise]

Fred Armisen Goes Bald as Uncle Fester in 'Wednesday'

Wednesday stars Jenna Ortega as the titular macabre young woman, while Catherine-Zeta Jones plays matriarch Morticia and Luis Guzmánis the amorous Gomez. Fans will first get to see Armisen in episode seven, joining his melancholy niece’s quest to uncover a killer at her remote boarding school.

Fester is an ebullient counterweight to Ortega’s solemn title character, which makes it curious that, of all her relatives, she actually likes him the most. (Or maybe, more accurately, despises him the least.) Fester’s late appearance in the show, it's explained, is because he is in hiding due to his history of disturbing polite society. “He's someone on the run, but he has a strong link to the family and to Wednesday. They have a really good time together, and they help each other,” Armisen says. “It's a real family thing, but they’re friends as well.”

The two make a strange team, but “strange” is always the goal when it comes to The Addams Family. One of their experiences, as you can see from the image below, involves a dog-walking company’s motorcycle and sidecar, which is painted in Dalmatian spots. “He's weird. The character in general is just so unexpected. It's not just one thing,” Armisen says. “He’s a mix of being a weirdo, and he also seems happy. He’s a happy monster. There's nothing grumpy about him.”

The offbeat uncle first appeared in cartoonist Charles Addams gothic comics in the 1940s and ‘50s, then was played by Jackie Coogan in the 1960s TV sitcom, Christopher Lloyd in the 1990s big-screen movies, and voiced by Nick Kroll in the recent animated films. Armisen said he wanted to continue with tradition rather than reinvent the character.

“I wasn't thinking in terms of, ‘What can I bring to it to make it different?’ I thought, ‘No, I want the Jackie Coogan version. That's the version I can hear.’ Christopher Lloyd’s is amazing too. I wanted to just keep it there,” Armisen says. “ I didn't have any designs on, "Well, now I'm going to add this element …” No, this is someone who likes wearing those big coats, and is enjoying his own eccentricities."


The primary selling point for him was Burton, who directed several episodes and executive-produced the show with creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough. “He didn't direct my episode, but I met with him and hung out with him. You could even say that was one of the main reasons to go all the way to Romania, to get to meet Tim Burton and hang out with him,” Armisen says. “He's a huge part of my life. I think he's a huge part of everybody's life, the way that he's made that aesthetic really part of the mainstream.”

Armisen’s Fester routine involved buzzing his head smooth every morning. “Then there would be a layer of makeup, then powder, just to make me look more pale, and then dark circles around my eyes,” he says. “They'd take a picture, and go to the director or the producers. They'd send a text or something. We'd wait a while, and then they would hear, ‘Okay, darker. They want it darker around their eyes.’ So, someone was watching."

 

[Pennywise]

Weird how Grandma is the only one who seemingly won’t appear.

 

[DJ Kornphlake]

Wasn’t expecting that SNL alum as Fester, but I dig it! Seeing Ricci finally is great too!

Jenna is going to be the highlight, though!

Really liked the orchestral arrangement of "Paint It Black".

 

[The Joker]

It was great seeing Ricci at the end.

 

[Sawyer]

Weird how Grandma is the only one who seemingly won’t appear.

I was about to unleash hell for this perceived Lurch erasure until I looked at the Wikipedia page and saw that Lurch was apparently cast and I just had no idea.

 

[Dave McFly]

I legit laughed out loud from her smothering line lol

 

[NotNickFury]

From that little bit we got of him, Fred Armisen is giving me Jackie Coogan vibes from the 60s series. I dig it.

 

[Dave McFly]

Really liked the orchestral arrangement of "Paint It Black".

I like you hear bits of the classic Addams Family theme in parts of that score too very nice

 

[Dave McFly]

From that little bit we got of him, Fred Armisen is giving me Jackie Coogan vibes from the 60s series. I dig it.

me too I am totally digging the casting in this series!

 

[Pennywise]

From that little bit we got of him, Fred Armisen is giving me Jackie Coogan vibes from the 60s series. I dig it.

Armisen mentioned he used Coogan as an influence for his portrayal in an interview with Vanity Fair.