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With news of Netflix ordering a second season for Wednesday, comes more questions. So far, the invincible child of woe has been, hunted, haunted, almost killed, and tortured in ways that she certainly enjoyed but was a wringer for us nevertheless. And now that her story is about to continue, things seem to be looking upward and onward for the star Goth at Nevermore Academy. But what’s going to happen next? Who will return and who won’t? All in good time. Meanwhile, here’s a look at what this hit teen drama did to the global audience.
For starters, our very own Collider review of the series calls it “a darker-than-usual take that never loses sight of its heart, humor, and horror.” On its release, Wednesday became an overnight hit among fans with a viewership of 150 million, surpassing even the success of Stranger Things (winner of five Emmy Awards). In less than a month of release, it was the second-most watched English-language Netflix series in the history of the platform. What’s more? The show’s success catapulted to the point of #WednesdayAddams becoming a social media phenomenon, with millions of TikTokkers replicating her dance moves, styling, and makeup, even though Ms. Addams despises the pretentiousness of “social media” and its users. Even Lady Gaga joined the bandwagon, taking on a Wednesday look and grooving to the trending sped-up rendition of her song “Bloody Mary”. Not to mention the popularity of The Rolling Stone’s song “Paint it Black” reached a new peak after its official cover was used for the series. So, it's no surprise that the show is getting a second season. After all, our Addams girl is a bit of an overachiever. As the Season 1 showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough stated in an interview on Netflix’s Tudum, “We can’t wait to dive headfirst into another season and explore the kooky, spooky world of Nevermore”.
Based on the eponymous character created by Charles Addams, the Netflix original series is co-directed by Tim Burton, who’s also one of the executive producers on the show. And, if Jenna Ortega was already popular, her role as Wednesday Addams has made her a global sensation, both offline and online. Wednesday premiered on November 16, 2022, on Netflix, and if you haven’t had a chance to explore the dark escapades of the teenage daughter of Morticia and Gomez Addams, and her “acquaintances” at the Nevermore Academy, then you are really missing some seriously good content. The first season is currently streaming on Netflix.
While we don’t have all the details of the upcoming second season, check out everything we know so far about Wednesday Season 2 in the guide below.
When Is Wednesday Season 2 Coming Out?
Netflix announced the renewal of Wednesday for its second season with a video on Twitter. Now, if the new season is to follow the same production timeline as the first one, our guestimate is that it would take at least another 12-14 months of filming and post-production, which puts the release of the second season somewhere in mid-2024. Yes, it’s quite a long wait, but keep watching this space for the latest update on the release date of Wednesday Season 2. And in the meantime, why not catch up (or rewatch) the first season, currently available only on Netflix?
How Many Episodes Will There Be in Wednesday Season 2?
The first season of Wednesday had eight episodes, with each episode running approximately for an hour. So the second season is expected to follow the same format and have eight episodes of roughly 60 minutes each. It’s also possible that the popularity of Season 1 could encourage a higher number of episodes, which tends to happen with many series.
Stay tuned as we bring you the latest news on episodes of Wednesday Season 2, as and when they become available.
Is There a Wednesday Season 2 Trailer?
So far, there’s only an official announcement video from Netflix confirming the second season of Wednesday. With the popular goth’s face breaking into a half-smirk, half-smile, there’s a promise of “more torture” ahead and like her, you are going to love it too! Watch the clip in the player above and stay tuned for the latest teaser or trailer, which will be added here as and when they are released.
Who Could Return In the Wednesday Season 2 Cast?
The showrunners of Wednesday have put together an ensemble cast for the series, featuring some of the biggest names in Hollywood. The star-studded cast, headlined by Jenna Ortega, includes, but is not limited to Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán, Isaac Ordonez, Gwendoline Christie, Jamie McShane, Fred Armisen, and Christina Ricci in major roles.
Ortega is the star of the series and the story as Wednesday Addams, daughter, and first child of Morticia and Gomez Addams, where Zeta-Jones and Guzman play Mr. and Mrs. Addams respectively. Ricci had earlier played the role of a younger Wednesday in the 90s film series. Check out her exclusive interview with Collider where she talks about her return to the franchise in a new role.
In the Netflix series, Ricci plays the role of Marilyn Thornhill / Laurel Gates, the botany teacher at Nevermore Academy and dorm mother to Wednesday and her roommate Enid. Enid is played by Emma Myers. Christie stars as the school’s principal Larissa Weems and Riki Lindhome as Dr. Valerie Kinbott, a therapist to the students (including Wednesday). In a dramatic climax, we saw both Weems and Kinbott getting killed, but we never saw their bodies buried. So, it’s possible both Weems and Kinbott could return in the new season. After all, anything is possible in Nevermore.
So far, in Season 1, Isaac Ordonez features as Pugsley Addams, Wednesday’s younger brother; Armisen as Uncle Fester, Gomez’s brother; McShane as Sheriff Galpin, Percy Hynes White as Xavier Thorpe, Hunter Doohan as Tyler Galpin, Joy Sunday as Bianca Barclay, Moosa Mostafa as Eugene Ottinger, Georgie Farmer as Ajax Petropolus, Enid’s love interest, and Victor Dorobantu as Thing, a sentient disembodied hand and a close relative to the Addams family, who watches over Wednesday and helps her in her investigations.
All the Addams family members (and Enid) are expected to reprise their roles as the main characters for the second season. And it’s fair to say, their friends, Bianca, Xavier, Ajax, and Eugene, will also most likely return to join Wednesday on her new chapter of mayhem. As for who else will be joining and who’ll leave the cast, that's something we'll have to wait and see.
Who Are the Creators of Wednesday?
Netflix’s Wednesday is created and written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, with April Blair and Kayla Alpert co-writing. Both Gough and Millar are recognized producers, writers, and showrunners, who are best known for writing for films like Shanghai Noon, Shanghai Knights, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and co-writing Spider-Man 2. The duo also created and produced the series Smallville, Into the Badlands, and The Shannara Chronicles.
Tim Burton serves as one of the executive producers on the show, along with Gough, Millar, Alpert, Steve Stark, Andrew Mittman, Gail Berman, Jonathan Glickman, Tommy Harper, Kevin Lafferty, and Kevin Miserocchi. The creator of iconic, modern classics like Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Alice in Wonderland, among many others, Burton directs the first four of the eight episodes of the first season of Wednesday and is expected to return for the second season in a similar capacity. James Marshall and Gandja Monteiro are also credited as directors of the first season of the series.
What Is the Background of Wednesday?
Wednesday is a coming-of-age teenage supernatural drama-comedy based on characters created by Charles Addams called the Addams Family. The creepy, kooky, spooky, and quite unordinary family consists of Morticia and Gomez Addams, and their children, Wednesday and Pugsley, the Thing, Uncle Fester, Lurch, and Grandmama. The characters were originally published in The New Yorker in the 1930s, later becoming a television series in 1964. The series turned into a decades-long franchise and became a cult classic, so much so, that it spawned countless remakes and reboots, including books, video games, comics, movies, and animated series. Of all of them, The Addams Family movies made in 1991 and 1993 are arguably the most popular. The characters of the Addams Family have profoundly influenced modern pop culture.
The Netflix original series focuses on the daughter of the family, Wednesday, who’s now a teenager and has latent psychic powers, which she learns more about over the course of the first season. After being kicked out of other schools for her various mischievous stunts, Wednesday is sent to Nevermore Academy, a school for extraordinary children, where her parents met each other and fell in love. Soon she is embroiled in mysteries galore, diving headfirst into dangerous situations and facing potential death with a creepy smile on her face.
What Could the Story of Wednesday Season 2 Be About?
Wednesday’s plot takes from the original Addams Family story and is weaved into a murder mystery, making it a gothic noir-style whodunit. The entire first season explores a teenage Wednesday’s character and personality and how she slowly graduates from a closed-off, highly self-involved adolescent to warming up to friendship and love and helping her friends uncover a stalker and monster called a Hyde (yes, like the Robert Louis Stevenson story). We'll keep spoilers out of it as much as possible but here's how the first season sets up Season 2:
In the finale of the first season, the Hyde is caught but it looks like he will most likely escape from police custody. However, a stalker makes themselves known, which is evident from some creepy text messages sent to Wednesday as she is departing the school. While she had thought discovering the Hyde was the end of all troubles, which is paralleled in the novel that she’s been writing since the beginning of the series, she realizes it’s all just beginning.
Wednesday Season 2 is expected to have a two-year time jump from the events of the first season (which would allow for the time it takes to finish production). We are also hoping that in the new season, her family, particularly Morticia and Gomez will get more exposure, which will also help us understand Wednesday’s background better. In an interview about what to expect in the second season, the showrunners elaborate saying:
“We wanna sort of explore and sort of complicate all of those relationships going forward. The school was closed when they left, which gave us the most possibilities for season two, and I think that’s something that we’re excited to explore. For us, the show also is really about this female friendship, with Wednesday and Enid really being at the center of that. The fact that they really connected with audiences, it has been really gratifying. So, we’re excited to explore now that Wednesday’s dipped her toe into the friendship pool, what’s that gonna look like? It’s like, she hugged. That was her big arc for the season, right? So it’s like now, we do that. Then, the other thing that’s really interesting is to continue to explore the Wednesday-Morticia mother-daughter relationship as well, which now that Morticia knows about the power, it has given her sort of an idea of how that’s going to go. How is their relationship going to evolve?”
With all that in mind, it looks like Wednesday Season 2 will take everything we loved about Season 1 and amp it all up to eleven. And there's no telling just where it could all go before we reach the end. Stay tuned for more!