The Addams Family

The Addams Family (1991)

Timing: 1:40 (100 min)

7.1/10
5003

7.695/10
175866

7/10
200000

All about film

Video 1

Photo 71

Actors and characters

Release date

1991-11-22

Country

United States

Production

Paramount, Scott Rudin Productions, Orion Pictures

Genre

Comedy, Fantasy

Budget

$30 000 000

Revenue

$191 502 426

Website

https://www.paramountmovies.com/movies/the-addams-family

Director

Barry Sonnenfeld

Actors

Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedaya, Elizabeth Wilson, Judith Malina, Carel Struycken, Dana Ivey, Paul Benedict, Christina Ricci
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Scott Rudin, Graham Place

Operator

Owen Roizman

Composer

Marc Shaiman

Artist

Erin M. Cummins, Paul Sonski

Audition

Editing

Dede Allen, Jim Miller
All team (104)

• The construction of the Addams Family house cost $100,000.
• The film is based on the television series of the same name from the 1960s and the comics by Charles Addams.
• According to Angelica Houston, Christina Ricci herself came up with the sleeping pose for her character (with her arms crossed on her chest).
• The idea for the film originated as follows. Scott Rudin (who served as a producer on the film) was riding in a van with other executives from 20th Century Fox – Barry Diller, Leonard Goldberg (1934-2019), and Tom Sherak (1945-2014) – after seeing a movie, when Sherak’s son suddenly began to sing the theme song from the television series “The Addams Family” (1964-1966), and everyone joined in. The next day, Rudin suggested to Diller and Goldberg that they make a film about the Addams Family, and they agreed.
• To make Angelica Huston’s eyes appear slightly slanted, like Morticia’s in the original series, makeup artists lifted the corners of her eyes with threads secured in place with theatrical adhesive.
• When working on the image of Morticia, actress Angelica Huston drew inspiration not from Carolyn Jones’s (1930-1983) performance of the role in the original series (1964-1966), but from watching the documentary drama “Grey Gardens” (1975) by directors David Maysles (1931-1987) and Albert Maysles (1926-2015) about two elderly women living in a dilapidated mansion. Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale (1917-2002) and Edith Bouvier Beale (1896-1977), aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy (1929-1994), played the roles.
• Approximately a month after filming began, cinematographer Owen Roizman moved on to another project. Gale Tattersall was hired to replace him, but shortly after starting work, he ended up in the hospital. Director Barry Sonnenfeld had had enough of this, and he took on the duties of cinematographer himself, deciding he had nothing to lose, because if anything happened to him, the project would simply be shut down. He already had experience as a cinematographer.
• The actors involved in the project were not entirely pleased with the storyline concerning Uncle Fester; initially, it was intended to remain unknown whether Gordon, who suffers from amnesia and closely resembles Uncle Fester, was actually Fester. Two weeks before filming began, the actors asked Christina Ricci to approach Scott Rudin and Barry Sonnenfeld with a request not to make Fester an imposter. According to Sonnenfeld, the only actor who didn’t care about this question at all was Christopher Lloyd, who played Fester.