‘Wednesday’ Spinoff In Works At Netflix
Netflix is looking to build a franchise around its reigning most popular series. A Wednesday spinoff revolving around Fred Armisen’s Uncle Fester character is in early development at the streamer from MGM Television, Deadline has confirmed.
Conversations about the offshoot are happening alongside preparations for Season 2 of Wednesday — a new take of The Addams Family starring Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams — which became a ratings and pop culture phenomenon when it launched in November 2022. The horror comedy ranks as Netflix’s most popular English-language series with 252.1M views, almost doubling the next most popular TV season on the streamer.
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Armisen guest starred in one episode of Wednesday‘s first season in a memorable appearance as Uncle Fester, brother of Wednesday’s father Gomez Addams (Luis Guzman), who used his ability to generate electricity to revive Thing.
Gwendoline Christie, Riki Lindhome, Jamie McShane, Hunter Doohan, Percy Hynes White, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Georgie Farmer, Naomi J. Ogawa, Christina Ricci, and Moosa Mostafa co-starred in Season 1, with Catherine Zeta-Jones recurring as Wednesday’s mother Morticia.
The coming-of-age comedy is from Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Millar and directed/EPed by Tim Burton. Other EPs are Steve Stark (Toluca Pictures), Andrew Mittman (1.21 Entertainment), Kevin Miserocchi (Tee and Charles Addams Foundation), Kayla Alpert, Jonathan Glickman (Glickmania), Gail Berman, Tommy Harper, and Kevin Lafferty.
As Deadline previously reported, Season 2 will be filmed in Ireland, with production tentatively slated to begin in late April. Season 1 was shot in Romania.
There is little information about where the mothership Wednesday series would go thematically in Season 2. Gough and Millar have hinted that we might see more Addams family members — further expanding the universe and potentially setting up new offshoots — and explore further Wednesday’s relationship with her mother while Ortega, who is becoming a producer for Season 2, has indicated that the show would have stronger emphasize on horror over teen romance.
Bloomberg was first to report the news of the potential spinoff.
Denise Petski contributed to this report.
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