Tim Burton’s Wednesday Addams Netflix Series Has Cast Its Morticia (And Gomez), And People Are Having So Many Feelings

Some 10 years ago, Tim Burton came close to making an Addams Family movie, done in stop motion and in the style of Charles Addams’ classic New Yorker cartoons. That never happened. But something close to it is now in the works: Wednesday, an eight-episode, live-action Netflix series directed and executive produced by Burton, which follows the family’s Goth icon of a daughter. It’s been in the works for a bit now, but they finally cast the parents — and the actors they chose has people really excited.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Catherine Zeta-Jones will play elegant but ghoulish Morticia. It carries on a tradition from the ’90s live-action Addams Family movies of casting an Oscar-winner as the family matriarch. (Anjelica Huston heroically performed the duties in those, while Charlize Theron voiced her in the 2019 animated movie.)

Zeta-Jones, who won her trophy for Chicago, back in 2003, will join Jenny Ortega (Yes Day, You) as Wednesday. She’ll also be hobnobbing with beloved character actor and scene-stealer Luis Guzman, who will step into shoes filled by John Astin, Raul Julia, and Oscar Isaac, playing fastidious and chipper patriarch Gomez.

It’s great and outside-the-box casting. Zeta-Jones hasn’t been as visible as she once was, and Guzman rarely gets roles as sizeable as Gomez in an Addams Family adaptation. Mind you, the show is about Wednesday and not a straight take on the source. Here is the premise, as per THR:

Wednesday is described as a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Wednesday attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the supernatural mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago — all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships at Nevermore.

So you may not be seeing Zeta-Jones and Guzman’s Morticia and Gomez as often as you may like. The THR piece even refers to the actress, at least, as a “guest star.” Still, people on social media flipped for the casting.

— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) August 9, 2021

I simply love when hot people are cast as hot people. https://t.co/MIrgNlCASy

— Chris Feil (@chrisvfeil) August 9, 2021

ok you have my attention https://t.co/mTR5f10L8X

— Muna (@Muna_Mire) August 9, 2021

LOOK AT MY MOM AND DAD EVERYONE https://t.co/hWxWIR0Z03

— Tamara Fuentes (@tamara_fuentes) August 9, 2021

Some even pointed out the show has turned into a bona fide Traffic reunion. (Zeta-Jones won her Oscar for the Steven Soderbergh drug saga, which boasted some predictably excellent work from Guzman.)

— Josh Slater-Williams (@jslaterwilliams) August 9, 2021