The Addams Family are headed back to television. And this time, the similarly macabre Tim Burton is at the helm.
According to Deadline, MGM which “controls the underlying rights to the IP” (sexy!) is putting together a package for a new live-action TV series, which Burton would executive produce and potentially direct all of the episodes. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are also on board the project as head writers and showrunners and would executive produce alongside Burton. Apparently, this new version would be set in modern day and focus on the family’s precocious daughter Wednesday Addams.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time Burton has been attached to an Addams Family project. Back in 2010 the property was being developed by Illumination Entertainment as a stop-motion feature, with Burton directing (the original plan was to film it in 3D because of course it was). Eventually the rights were up for grabs again and secured by MGM, who released last year’s The Addams Family CGI-animated movie, with animation handled by London-based Cinesite (a sequel is coming next Halloween).
The Addams Family, of course, began as a comic that appeared in The New Yorker beginning in 1938. Over the years it has been adapted as a popular live-action television series (back in 1964) and several animated series and a pair of insanely wonderful lie-action movies by Barry Sonnenfeld in the early 1990s (Addams Family Values or bust). This adaptation makes sense for Burton, whose own drawing style shares certain characteristics with Addams’ (and obviously his jet-black sense of humor melds perfectly with the property).
Gough and Millar have an extensive background in television, having created and executive produced the long-running Smallville and more recently Into the Badlands. Burton has less experience in television, although he started off working in television on things like the 1980s revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and a Kung-Fu version of Hansel and Gretel that was so weird that Disney aired it once, on Halloween night, in 1982. He also developed and executive produced an animated spin-off of Beetlejuice that ran for four seasons.
The report notes that a network and/or platform hasn’t been decided on yet but that there are multiple bidders and that Netflix is currently the frontrunner. Sounds like the return of the lovably oddball family could come sooner than later.
via Collider