Did Tim Burton Really Create ‘Wednesday’? The Truth About His Role in Netflix’s Hit
Netflix’s hit horror-ish series features Tim Burton in its credits, but the director’s role in Wednesday is a bit different from what you might have thought.
Whenever someone thinks about gloomy animated movies and TV series with Gothic vibes, Tim Burton’s name immediately pops up in mind.
There’s no surprise in that — over the decades, Beetlejuice’s director has created numerous movies that would eventually cement his status as the filmmaker who excelled at making horror stories feel family-friendly and turning them into visually stunning masterpieces.
More recently, Burton received another portion of recognition thanks to his involvement in Netflix’s Wednesday, two seasons of which made history on the streaming platform, making it one of the most watched shows ever.
However, Burton isn’t always there to hold the entire control over Wednesday’s creation, mostly being on board for other things rather than directing.
Does Tim Burton Direct ‘Wednesday’?
Yes, but not entirely, meaning Tim Burton has only directed eight out of sixteen episodes of Wednesday.
However, Burton’s artistic vision is at the centre of the show’s story, which is why he’s often wrongfully credited for being Wednesday’s full-time director.
Apart from that, Burton is on board for Netflix’s series as an executive producer, so he’s in fact involved enough to be considered one of Wednesday’s creators.
After the show’s extremely successful season 2 that was released on Netflix in August and September, Burton will continue collaborating with Wednesday’s showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar on the upcoming third season, and possibly on further instalments.
Tim Burton Was Making That ‘Wednesday’ Animated Scene for Months
Though Burton might not be the one and only director on Wednesday, he was responsible for creating the scene that only he himself could elaborate.
In Wednesday’s season 2, one of the episodes is interrupted by a 90-seconds-long visually stunning black-and-white sequence recounting the story of Isaac Night, a mad genius who designs a clockwork heart which replaces his own fragile one, but later ends up being destroyed by one of Isaac’s inventions.
As Burton recalled in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter back then, he wished to make the scene, which he had been completing for eight months, look like some kind of a student project — that was the way for him to reminisce about the old days when he worked as an animator at Disney.
“I remember doing Vincent, and [we tried to go] back to the first thing I did. … I kept having to tell the animators, ‘No, it’s looking too good. No, the animation’s too slick. We need to pretend like I’m back in my student days and do it like I did it in the beginning [of my career]”, Burton said.
