Last October, it was announced that Tim Burton was helming a live-action Addams Family TV series that was in the midst of a bidding war between various different platforms. It was noted at the time that Netflix was the favorite to land the rights to it and sure enough, What’s On Netflix is now reporting that the streamer has officially won out. What’s more, the news comes with our first plot details for the show, including its title – Wednesday.
According to the logline, the series follows “Wednesday Addams’ misadventures as a student at Nevermore Academy: a very unique boarding school snuggled in deepest New England.” The famously morose teen will be “learning to master her growing set of abilities all the while solving a murder mystery, going up against a new growing evil threat, and battling with her various new relationships around the school of Nevermore.” Wednesday season 1 will consist of eight hour-long episodes.
What’s On Netflix shares that MGM TV – who are in charge of production, with Netflix handling distribution rights – is searching for an actress of either Latina or Hispanic background around the ages of 18-20 to play the lead role. Though the boarding school setting means we won’t get the whole clan together as usual, Morticia and Gomez Addams will still be featured.
A list of names for the original characters created for the show have been revealed and among the supporting players are Enid Sinclair, Tyler Galpin, Yoko Tanaka, Xavier Thorpe, Eugene Ottley, Ajax Petropolis, Principal Larissa Weems, Tamara Novak, and Bianca Barclay. As previously announced, Smallville‘s Alfred Gough and Miles Miller serve as showrunners.
The series sounds like it’ll be mixing Addams Family with Harry Potter and maybe adding a Riverdale-style teen mystery twist, too. And so far, at least, it looks as if Netflix might have its next big hit on its hands in Wednesday.