Yahoo News Catherine Zeta-Jones to play Morticia Addams in Tim Burton's Netflix series
Catherine Zeta-Jones will play Morticia from the Addams family in Tim Burton’s live-action series about Wednesday Addams, Netflix has said.
The Oscar-winning Welsh actor, 51, will play the family matriarch in Wednesday alongside US actor Luis Guzman as Gomez.
Jenna Ortega will play the lead role of Morticia and Gomez's death-obsessed daughter Wednesday in the series, described as a “coming-of-age comedy” set during the youngster’s school years.
Acclaimed filmmaker Burton – known for his affinity with the bizarre and macabre – will direct.
Watch: Catherine Zeta-Jones poses in polka dot bikini
It is the latest spinoff based on the characters, originally created by cartoonist Charles Addams in the late 1930s for the New Yorker.
Wednesday and the rest of her family, including Gomez and Morticia, were only given names when the characters were turned into the classic 1964 TV series The Addams Family.
Our Addams family is expanding!
Catherine Zeta-Jones will step into the iconic silhouette of Morticia Addams while Luis Guzmán will bring to life the debonair Gomez Addams in the upcoming TV series Wednesday, starring Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams and directed by Tim Burton. pic.twitter.com/MiofyWIbwy— Netflix (@netflix) August 9, 2021
Carolyn Jones played Morticia in the original show, while Anjelica Huston took the role in the 1991 film The Addams Family and its 1993 sequel Addams Family Values.
Zeta-Jones, who has been married to Hollywood star Michael Douglas, 76, since 2000, got her big break in the early 1990s in TV series The Darling Buds Of May.
She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 2002 musical Chicago.
Burton's TV series is one of several Addams Family projects currently in the pipeline.
The Addams Family 2, the animated sequel to a 2019 movie, will arrive in cinemas on 8 October.
Touring stage production The Addams Family: A Musical Comedy will open in the UK at New Victoria Theatre in Woking, Surrey, on 17 August, starring Samantha Womack as Morticia and Cameron Blakely as Gomez.
There's also a new Addams Family video game, the first since 2001, arriving in time for Halloween.
The Addams Family: Mansion Mayhem launches later this year digitally and at retail for Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox and PC.
Watch: Tim Burton directing live-action Wednesday Addams series
