Al Gough and Miles Millar's "Wednesday" has forged its own identity while staying true to what "The Addams Family" franchise has always stood for. What's more, Tim Burton's enthusiastic involvement has shaped the show's tone and aesthetic, where the gothic gloom of gargoyles and graveyards is often contrasted against bright, pop hues to subvert expectations. "Wednesday" engages our interest by taking a beloved group of characters and situating them in a time-tested YA setting -- the protagonist enrolling in a fantastical boarding school brimming with eccentric characters. Nevermore Academy might remind you of Hogwarts or Camp Half-Blood, but Millar insists that while these parallels might seem inevitable, the true inspiration behind "Wednesday" stems from popular tropes in Stephen King's works (via The Hollywood Reporter):
"We've always loved the genre [YA] and 'Harry Potter' and 'Percy Jackson', certainly, but, for us, Stephen King and Tim Burton [were the inspirations], because Tim wasn't on the project when we first started it and created it. The Stephen King element of small towns and teenage emotions run rampant felt like the elements that [we went for], and then ['The Addams Family' cartoonist] Charles Addams, so those things were really what inspired us. It wasn't any homage to 'Percy Jackson' or anything like that, or 'Harry Potter', but as soon as you get to boarding school, the comparisons are there."
This makes sense, as superficial parallels can easily be drawn between Nevermore and any fictional magical school, where everything from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters ("X-Men") to Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy ("The Magicians") might appear to fit the bill. The Stephen King influence, however, is deliberately woven into the show's DNA and how it brings the small, eerie town of Jericho to life.