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Tim Burton planning new live-action 'Addams Family' series

Tim Burton signs books at his exhibition “Lost Vegas: Tim Burton @ The Neon Museum" on October 15, 2019. (Photo by Denise Truscello/WireImage)
Tim Burton signs books at his exhibition “Lost Vegas: Tim Burton @ The Neon Museum" on October 15, 2019. (Photo by Denise Truscello/WireImage)

Tim Burton is assembling a new take on The Addams Family for TV, marking his first live-action series and possibly the most delightfully obvious union of director and material ever.

Deadline reported that Burton is in talks to serve as an executive producer, as well as possibly directing all of the episodes.

Read more: Why Dumbo is the ultimate Tim Burton movie

Smallville duo Alfred Gough and Miles Millar will be head writers and showrunners.

MGM has the rights to the property and has been financing the development, which is now the subject of a bidding war, with Netflix as the current frontrunner.

Watch: Trailer for the 2019 animated version of The Addams Family

The plot of the series will reportedly follow Wednesday Addams dealing with the world in 2020.

This marks Burton’s first foray into live-action TV work, but he previously shepherded an animated series based around the characters of his 1988 fantasy-comedy Beetlejuice.

Read more: Addams Family animation trailer nods to Pennywise

This project comes in the wake of MGM’s animated take on The Addams Family, which was released into cinemas last year and has a sequel on the way in 2021.

That film starred Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron as the Addams parents, with Chloë Grace Moretz and Finn Wolfhard as their children.

Anjelica Huston is kissed by Raul Julia in a scene from the film 'The Addams Family', 1991. (Photo by Orion/Getty Images)
Anjelica Huston is kissed by Raul Julia in a scene from the film 'The Addams Family', 1991. (Photo by Orion/Getty Images)

The spookiest family in popular culture first appeared in a series of cartoon strips in the 1930s, before they made the jump to TV in the 1960s.

A revival of the franchise arrived on the big screen in 1991 with Barry Sonnenfeld’s movie The Addams Family, in which Anjelica Huston played Morticia Addams in a Golden Globe-nominated performance.

Read more: Where are the cast of The Addams Family now?

That film was followed by beloved sequel Addams Family Values in 1993, earning stronger critical reviews but subpar box office.

The poorly reviewed direct-to-video film Addams Family Reunion in 1998 assembled a new cast and intended to launch TV series The New Addams Family, which was cancelled after one season.

Watch: Tim Burton and Jack Nicholson clashed over Joker look