Fall Movie Preview: November 1993

Addams Family Values
Starring: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Joan Cusack, Carol Kane, Christina Ricci, Jimmy Workman.
Directed by: Barry Sonnenfeld.
More is better, the unwritten law of Hollywood sequels, is an adage Addams Family Values takes literally. The follow-up to the 1991 hit opens with the birth of a new addition to the infamous clan — Pubert, a mustachioed baby boy whose crying ways threaten to dampen his parents' romantic passions. Enter Debbie (Cusack), a nanny with a fondness for rich men and possibly homicide.

News of the impending babe, announced by mom Morticia at the end of The Addams Family, may have brought joy to sequel-hungry audiences, but first-time director Barry Sonnenfeld was too emotionally exhausted to share in the revelry. The Addams Family had been over budget and over schedule, and even the film's phenomenal box office success ($113.5 million) wasn't enough to persuade him to do a follow-up. ''But then Paul Rudnick [who did uncredited rewrites on the first Family] came to me with a great script,'' Sonnenfeld remembers, ''and Paramount was willing to pay me a large amount of money. One without the other would not have worked.'' As for reassembling the old cast, he says, laughing, ''Paramount was willing to pay them large amounts of money.''

Large would be the definitive word for the movie; its almost $40 million budget exceeds the original's cost by at least $8 million. ''They spent a lot to make things look decrepit,'' says Cusack. But it's not all peeling paint and stuffed animals (and we don't mean the cuddly kind). To add an air of luxurious ruin, Oscar winner Theoni V. Aldredge (The Great Gatsby) was brought in to design the costumes. ''I didn't do the first movie, so I never understood why I was asked to do the second,'' Aldredge says modestly. ''They're the same people; they wear the same clothes.'' For subtle distinctions, she added intricate beading and embroidery to Morticia's omnipresent blackness. As for Gomez, it's custom-made couture as usual. ''There was Raul all over the place,'' Aldredge says fondly, ''enjoying his silk pajamas.''

The family has changed its ways somewhat. It's not only Pubert (cartoonist Charles Addams' original name for Pugsley, changed because of its raunchy implications): Now they actually go out and dothings. Wednesday (Ricci) and Pugsley (Workman) go to sleep-away camp in the mountains. Morticia and Gomez travel to a restaurant for a tango. Debbie and Fester (Lloyd) honeymoon in Hawaii (Fester had wanted Death Valley, but it was booked).

And then there's the ever-present backyard graveyard — good for an evening stroll as well as a wedding between the murderous Debbie and the lovestruck Fester. Debbie's off-white, off-the-shoulder, satin-and-organza gown ''is not in the greatest taste,'' admits Aldredge. Actually, says Sonnenfeld, ''it's in really bad taste, but she's a garish bride.''

The same could be said of the ceremony, which takes place in front of dozens of guests — in mourning regalia. Sonnenfeld, whose direction of Lloyd consisted merely of occasional reminders to ''act more like Fester,'' instructed the ghoulish groom to imitate the director at his own wedding. ''I wept uncontrollably through the whole thing,'' says Sonnenfeld. ''I thought I was laughing, but it turned out not.'' A husband to the Addams manor born. (Nov. 19)
Buzz: Sonnenfeld's immediate goal is ''basking in the sequel's financial glory.'' He should have no problem.