Netflix’s exciting trailer for Wednesday proves the Addams Family TV show is the creepy, high-quality comeback that Tim Burton fans have long been anticipating. The first trailer for Wednesday sees the title character back to her homicidal hobbies, which includes her expulsion from high school after unleashing a bag of piranhas on her brother’s bully. Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) is sent to the Nevermore Academy by her parents Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez Addams (Luis Guzmán), where she learns to control her psychic powers and help solve a 25-year-old mystery affecting her family.

The upcoming 2022 series Wednesday is the first full TV series to be helmed by Tim Burton and also marks a return to the director’s gothic trademarks. Best known for his gothic fantasy and horror films like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas (which he didn’t direct), and Sweeney Todd, Burton also directed the highly successful Batman and Batman Returns in his hey-day. However, Burton has been in a noted career slump since his divisive 2010 Alice in Wonderland adaptation, with his subsequent films like Dark Shadows (2012) and Dumbo (2019) leaving many to wonder whether the gothic master had lost his touch.


Considering the themes and style of The Addams Family’s 1990s movies had already led some to believe it was Tim Burton who directed them, Wednesday was already posed as his perfect comeback project. Now that Wednesday's first trailer has officially been released, the subject matter, style, and interpretation of characters look to be a proper return to form for Burton, which is exactly what audiences have been waiting for over the past decade. Not only does the supernatural mystery format offer a new intriguing take for Burton, but the underlying satirical and gothic tone of the classic Addams Family characters play to all of his strengths. If the trailer is any indication, Wednesday looks to be Tim Burton’s best live-action project since 2007’s Sweeney Todd.

Why Wednesday Looks So Good (& Is Perfect For Tim Burton)


The Addams Family is a largely familiar property, so tackling the iconic characters and themes is apt to be scrutinized by audiences who are partial to either the 1960s sitcom or the 1990s movies. However, if any director has the proven talent and experience with these themes and specific genres to make a modern Addams Family project worthy, it’s Tim Burton. Wednesday is the type of creepy, family-centered project that audiences have been yearning for from the director since before Frankenweenie. Whereas Burton’s recent films focused on gothic fantasy re-imaginings of classic Disney stories, The Addams Family show perfectly suits the more mature and macabre narratives that suit his successful juxtapositions of morbid obsessions with typical American suburbia.

Considering Wednesday is more of a coming-of-age story rather than the typical Addams Family formula, Burton is also an ideal choice to tackle the teenage Wednesday Addams character based on how well he brought to life the gothic teenager Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice. While Lydia didn’t have a homicidal streak like the tonally deadpan Wednesday, her obsession with death and the macabre translates well to the qualities of the iconic Addams Family daughter. Wednesday brings back exactly what Tim Burton excelled at from the 1980s through the 2000s, and with superb casting (particularly Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams) and production design, the Netflix series appears to be the most promising execution of the horror-comedy master's unique style that audiences originally fell in love with.