Wednesday co-creator Miles Millar claimed the Netflix series was not inspired by Harry Potter or Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Millar revealed Wednesday's similarities to the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson novels were not intended to be taken as homages to the franchises. When asked if any of the notable titles from Young Adult fiction influenced the Netflix series, the creator admitted that Wednesday's developers were fans of the genre but additionally stated that the show mainly emulated the works of horror author Stephen King and filmmaker Tim Burton. Millar further claimed they were specifically inspired by King's ensemble of teenaged protagonists and the author's consistent use of small rural towns for the primary setting of his novels.
"It wasn't any homage to Percy Jackson or anything like that, or Harry Potter, but as soon you get to boarding school, the comparisons are there," Millar explained. "We wrestled with that initially, in terms of, if we're doing the teenage Wednesday Addams, is it funny if she's the fish out of water in a regular high school? But then we felt like every day should get back to the family, and we sort of wanted her out of the family."
The creator continued, "And then the other thing about the boarding school offered was boarding in the world of the Addams Family. So you see, where did Gomez and Morticia go to school? What is that? How do these people exist in this real world? So, it excited us in terms of opened and expanded the world of the Addams Family, and that's something, I think, certainly, people have been intrigued by. Now we have the opportunity in future seasons to really expand that world, and what's great is that no one's really explored this part of the Addams Family, so it really is a fresh canvas, which we're excited to be able to draw on."
Fans Can't Get Enough of Wednesday
Based on animator Charles Addams' long-running The Addams Family franchise, Wednesday centers on the eponymous daughter of the macabre family, as she attends her first year at the notorious boarding school for outcasts, Nevermore Academy. The Netflix series quickly grew massively popular following its Nov. 23 premiere, with a report from information, data and market measurement firm Nielsen stating that Wednesday raked in nearly 6 billion minutes in views during its first week of release.
Season 1 of Wednesday is available to stream on Netflix.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter