“Wednesday, for us, from concept until now, has been a three and a half year journey,” said Alfred Gough. “We came up with the initial idea which was teenage Wednesday Addams in boarding school. We had to track down the rights and then we pitched it to the Addams Foundation.”

As screenwriters, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are known for Shanghai Noon, Smallville, I Am Number Four, Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Into the Badlands. Their latest creation is perhaps most similar to the creation of Smallville, the Superman origin series.

Miles Millar said, “Tonally, this is in the pocket of Smallville. Oftentimes, the studio comes to you, but this time, it was our idea. We put together a 15-page series treatment with photographs, descriptions, log lines for episodes, and that led to a meeting. We had to do the legwork, write the spec treatment, but we felt passionate about the project and fell in love with the idea of doing this.”

“From there, we wrote the first episode, that’s when the pandemic hit. We sent the pilot script to Tim Burton’s agent, even though his agent said he’s never been interested in television,” he continued, “but the agent liked it and sent it to Tim. Four days later, we got a call. He loved it and wanted to meet.”

Miles Millar, Alfred Gough, and Tim Burton. Photo by Charley Gallay

Tim Burton told Alfred Gough and Miles Millar that he “loved the script” and “would have dated Wednesday Addams in high school.” They shot the series in Romania about a year later.

Pitching the Series

“Now it sort of feels like a no-brainer, but for the process of getting it made, it was extremely challenging,” said Miles. “It almost fell apart like three or four times. It was near death, even in production, and had to be resuscitated. That’s the thing about the business, you have to just keep fighting.”

At this point in their career, Alfred and Miles are in a place to get into rooms simply with an idea and their resumés, but they’ve always shown up with full treatments and full ideas. Alfred said, “You have to know it’s a show when you go into the room.”

“When we go into the room, we know this is a series, we know we have a bunch of stories to tell,” he continued. “We know the world. We know the mythology. Now, it’s not set in stone, it can evolve, but you know the DNA is there and it can work.”

Netflix really enjoyed the pitch and told the writers it was one of the best pitches they had heard that year. Curious to know more, they asked the executives common pitch problems. Netflix replied, “They haven’t worked it out. They have an idea and a jumping off point, but they haven’t worked out all of the stories.”

Miles added, “Early in our careers, we worked really really hard and we only went out with one spec we knew wasn’t ready. But that was the lesson. We never went out with anything else when we weren’t truly satisfied. We will re-read and revise until we’re satisfied and the scenes are working for us. As writers, you have to have that honesty with yourself and not be satisfied until it’s your best draft.”

“You don’t have to know every single episode, but you have to know where your show is going and how your show is going to evolve, even in very general terms. We’re all writers, but we’re also in the sales business. You’re selling passion and you’re selling ideas and the story has to be satisfying on many different levels. If you can’t tell that in a pitch, why are they going to invest millions to see if you can figure it out on their dime?”

Dealing with Rejection

When asked about dealing with rejection after you’ve put in so much work and so much of yourself, Miles said, “We have zero confidence. I think every writer has that. You expect me to be trampled, but then it’s tough skin and resilience and the passion to keep going. For us, what gets us through it is that we have another idea.”

The two essentially never think about their past work, only future work. Alfred added, “If you’ve gotten the script to the best version of it and left it all out on the field, and someone doesn’t respond to it for one reason or another, it’s just on to the next thing. You give 110 percent, but if it doesn’t resonate, you move on.”

“It’s harder when you’re younger because you think the next idea is not going to come, but Miles and I have been writing partners for 28 years. The one thing we know is that the next idea will come. We’re confident in that. It might not come easy, but you have to keep putting in the work. There’s no magic bullet. You just have to keep writing.”

Wednesday Addam (Jenna Ortega) & Gomez Addams (Luis Guzmán). Photo by Vlad Cioplea/ Netflix

The duo said this is what separates writers from other parts of the business. “You can change the course of your life with a script. That’s something that’s in the writer’s hands. You don’t need permission. Why are the guys who did Into the Badlands doing Wednesday? That’s where you have power as a writer — you can define your career. You can’t control people’s responses, but you can control what you do.”

Read our interview with Miles and Alfred for Into the Badlands here.

When the duo came up with the idea, they had a few other ideas in the works, but something became clear about Wednesday. “It revealed itself to us very quickly. There was a clarity that developed very quickly that we knew would work and we just stuck with it. We knew if we got the ball down the field, it would work.”

The Writing Partnership

The writers said a lot of their partnership revolves around “long conversations in cafes.” Miles said, “It’s an exploration and discussion on character, what the stories could be, the genre of the show. With Wednesday, the dilemma was should she be in a normal high school and it’s fish out of water or should it be more Addams-y, where we eventually decided she should go to boarding school?”

“Then, it’s figuring out who should surround her. Who should be her friends? What kind of world is this? For the pilot, for the pitch, you need the full episode worked out. We always pitch the beats of the first episode and that informs what the show is going to be. We also always do a pretty extensive series bible, including a 50-page visual lookbook, so we’re all on the same page. I think that’s the difference between showrunning and being a feature writer.”

They sent this material to Tim Burton and worked to clarify communication with everyone involved. “That’s the weirdness of writers becoming managers. That’s what showrunning is, really, managerial. But that’s how you make a great product. Make sure everyone feels heard and that the product will make them proud.”

Once everyone gets on the same page, the writers then had to think about the fans—including old fans of the show, fans of the Christina Ricci reboot, and Tim Burton fans in general. “When we’re writing, the first thing we want to do with an iconic character is make sure the story works on its own. Then you can put that overlay on it, but it’s only additive.”

“You can never lean on that out of the gate,” they said in regards to the lore of the fan base. “If you took the name Wednesday Addams out of it, does the story work? Is it emotional? Is it interesting? Is it funny? Once you have that, you can find those Easter Egg moments.” This includes various elements in the background of the town and even the origin story for the “two snaps” which had never been explained before.

“Christina Ricci’s portrayal in the 90s became the iconic Wednesday, so the fact that we got her in the show was a tribute to those movies, her performance, and the fans.”

What’s Next for Wednesday?

When the writers pitched the 8-episode series, they wanted to make sure that each episode was satisfying on its own, but also that the full arc worked and there was something extra for future seasons. “You always leave doors open to tell more stories in the series.”

“We did say, in Season 2 this happens, but it’s pretty short. A paragraph about what happens in Season 2 and Season 3, so you want there to be some longevity to the show. It’s not a limited series, so as creators, we need to know where the show is going. That’s certainly something we think about.”

While the writers don’t spend too much time looking back on past projects, some of their rules have changed over the years. “We used to have a hard and fast rule that we would never have more than three lines of exposition. It doesn’t look good on the page. With an action scene, we might have a slug line, but never more than three.”

Miles continued, “Weirdly, now, we’re more flexible. We break that rule and the exposition has gotten more detailed, oddly. We write out all the action sequences. They’re very visual. I think Directors like that the transitions are there. That doesn’t mean they don’t bring their own thing to it, but for us, it’s there on the page. You should see the episode in the writing.”

“We’ve seen so much of our stuff produced, so we also have that muscle where you know what will make the edit. Sometimes, you’ll have the outline and then realize you don’t need that scene to tell the story. Having set in the edit room, you learn what is and isn’t going to be in the show and how to make a scene better. It’s difficult to kill great lines, but you don’t need all the dialogue.” The writers said they also follow advice from Quentin Tarantino, which was “to go through the dialogue for each scene and cut out the last two lines.”

Staffing the TV Writers’ Room

“We’re looking for good scripts. Great description and visualization of what they’re trying to say. Great dialogue. Tight storytelling. You really want to have great spec.” They joked, “Our agent told us you need a great story with great dialogue, a great concept… the perfect script.”

Aside from the perfect script, the writers said a common problem with scripts they read is “the ability to tell a story.” Alfred said, “There’s nice writing, good character stuff, but can they tell a story? Is it moving from scene to scene? Is it tightly constructed? Why am I going to sit here and watch this? Sometimes, I don’t believe the writer would watch what they’ve written, so it does get personal like that.”

In terms of advice for writers, the duo said the biggest con is that “you split your money.” They said, “In a different era, it was much easier. Now, it’s financially more difficult to be partners. You get an 8-episode spread and that’s it, where we started with a 22-episode series and trying to raise families with that.” The writers continued, “But the advantages for us far outweigh any negatives. There are incredible highs and incredible lows and you have someone to share that with, someone totally in your corner.”

This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio version here.