It has been 34 years since Paramount Pictures released a movie reboot that remains one of the best of all time, and for a franchise that remains successful to this day. For many movie fans, reboots and remakes are dirty words, but when done right, they can end up as masterpieces, eclipsing even the movies and TV shows they are updating. Good examples of this come in the horror genre. In 1978, Philip Kaufman remade Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and it ended up as a superior version of that classic sci-fi horror story. In the 1980s, John Carpenter did the same thing with The Thing, and then David Cronenberg followed up with a remake of The Fly, both of which were superior to the original movies.
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This also happened in 1991, when Barry Sonnenfeld rebooted The Addams Family with a movie that revived the franchise, and it remains a successful franchise 34 years later.
Barry Sonnenfeld Rebooted The Addams Family to Great Acclaim
Barry Sonnenfeld brought The Addams Family back in a big way in 1991. This was a big reboot since the original franchise was a television series based on a popular comic strip. The comic strip began in The New Yorker in 1938, and it led to the creation of the television series in 1964, with John Astin, Carolyn Jones, and Jackie Coogan in the lead roles of the spooky, kooky family living a dark, comedic life. This led to an animated series in the 1970s and even crossover success with Scooby-Doo.
However, The Addams Family was never as popular as it was when Barry Sonnenfeld brought the franchise to the big screen in 1991. The movie starred Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston as Gomez and Morticia Addams, with Christina Ricci and Jimmy Workman as Wednesday and Pugsley. The story followed the return of Gomez’s brother. Uncle Fester, 25 years after he disappeared. What was initially a con with a man pretending to be Fester to steal the Addams fortune turned into the twist where he turned out to be the real Fester, but without his memories.
The story was enough to take the story made for three-panel comic strips and 30-minute sitcom episodes and stretch it into a feature-length movie that was a massive success. It made a $191 million box office take on a $30 million budget and received mostly positive reviews. It also increased interest in a franchise that had died off almost two decades earlier. Even better was that it resulted in a sequel, Addams Family Values, that was even better. While it had a lower box office take, it had better reviews and delivered one of the 90s’ best gothic comedies.
The cast was great, but Sonnenfeld had a firm grasp of the gothic humor and added just the right amount of jokes to make it one of the better reboots of any television show. It also created a new legacy for something that was, at one time, considered nothing more than a minor television success story.
The Addams Family Remains a Success With Wednesday
Thanks to the success of The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, there was a new cartoon that aired on ABC in 1992 and 1993, following the characters as they appeared in the movies. It also led to a new television series on Fox Family Channel in 1998. However, things really took off in 2019, when The Addams Family animated movie was released, which had a sequel two years later.
The best was yet to come. In 2022, Netflix released the live-action spin-off series Wednesday, which starred Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams. The series even brought back Christina Ricci, the actress who played Wednesday in the 1991 Addams Family movie, to star as a villain in the first season. Add in an incredible supporting cast that includes names like Gwendoline Christie as Larissa, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, Luis Guzman as Gomez, and Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester, and the show succeeded on every level.
Wednesday was a monster hit and earned a second season, which was released in two parts in 2025. Netflix even renewed it for a third season before the second season premiered, proving that 34 years after Barry Sonnenfeld rebooted The Addams Family, it remains even more popular decades later.
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Image courtesy of Paramount+
