BREAKING MOVIE/TV NEWS

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Burton's "Addams Family" Is Altogether Ooky



According to reports, Universal Pictures' Illumination Entertainment and producer Chris Meledandri continue to develop a 3D, stop-motion, animated "Addams Family" feature, based on the New Yorker magazine illustrations by cartoonist Charles Addams, to be directed by Tim Burton.

Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski ("Ed Wood") will write the screenplay.



“We’ve come up with an approach that nobody has ever done before", said Karaszewski."We want the tone to be as darkly funny and subversive as the Addams drawings.”



Addams never attributed names to his morbid characters, until an ABC TV live-action comedy sitcom was being developed, with the cartoonist naming the father 'Gomez', the mother 'Morticia', the uncle 'Fester', the butler 'Lurch', the daughter 'Wednesday' and the son 'Pubert', (later changed to 'Pugsley' at the insistence of the network).


The handy creature called 'Thing' was based on a New Yorker cartoon depicting a shocked mailman reacting to a sign posted on the Addams' mansion, warning "Beware of the Thing".



While developing the series, Addams explained that 'thing" was originally meant to be a disembodied head that rolled through the house on various ramps and pulleys. ABC later decided that a 'hand' would be better suited for a family audience.



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