In the first season of Wednesday, the protagonist received a disturbing visit: that of her uncle Stink, played by comic actor Fred Armisen, who had the worst reputation of the entire Addams family as a criminal. What exactly did that relative do when he was not with his niece? Was her reputation for him justified or, like Wednesday, was he a piece of bread? At Netflix, they already have a spin-off of the character in development to answer these questions that the character left after her short visit to the Nevermore Academy.
When it was revealed that Fred Armisen would play the character, an actor with an extensive career in Hollywood with work on Saturday Night Live or oddities like Forever, he hinted that he was delighted with the idea of playing Stink. “When I found out what the project was, I wanted to do it even more,” he explained of his involvement, “and when they said, “Well, it's about Uncle Stink,” it made all the sense in the world to me.”
He believed he was made to play this character, both because of the oddities of the Addams Family, as well as the acting tradition around the character or the fact that he, as an uncle, feels that it is the same way: “It's like the relationship I have as a uncle of my nephews: I can show up in my sister's life for a few episodes, it's fun (and I make sure it's fun), and then I'm gone."
The idea of producing a spin-off focused on Uncle Stink is also inevitable. When Wednesday premiered on November 23, 2022, Netflix could not foresee the public success it would be for its subscribers: it is estimated that the 10 episodes of the season accumulate more than one billion hours of viewing, making Jenna Ortega a promising from Hollywood to absolute star, and penetrating the cultural imagination thanks to his presence on social networks like TikTok.
Exploiting this success, therefore, was a temptation for Netflix, which is in pre-production on the second season of Wednesday, which has not yet been filmed, in part due to delays resulting from the Hollywood screenwriters' strikes. Of course, let no one take the project as a sure thing because it is only in the development phase: this means Netflix and Amazon, who has the rights to The Addams Family after the acquisition of MGM, are working with creatives to see if Uncle Stink makes for a spin-off, which should receive the green light if they are convinced by the proposed ideas.
At Netflix, according to Bloomberg, which publishes this news, they are entering a new stage: that of producing spin-offs and expanding fictional universes as their main priority, just like any other Hollywood studio today. The reasons are simple. Not owning popular intellectual properties like their rivals, they had to build their catalog from original ideas (or rent recognizable third-party brands like when they produced Marvel series like Jessica Jones and Daredevil, which are no longer on the service).
Now, however, they have enough series and movies recognizable to the public to create productions derived from these successes. In a landscape as populated and competitive as television, with such high production costs, producing a spin-off or a series set in a popular fiction universe makes it easier to promote the content.
What other projects do you have in hand? Well, for example, a television series set in the universe of Extraction, the Netflix film saga with Chris Hemsworth as an action hero. And, after contributing to the international success of Peaky Blinders with the international broadcast rights, they also have two television series in development for the period drama: a sequel set in mid-20th century Boston and a prequel centered on Polly , the matriarch played by Helen McCrory, who died during production of the final season.
