Publishing giant Penguin Random House has inked a potentially lucrative deal with Netflix for the rights to all 23 books in the popular Redwall series, by author Brian Jaques.
The world’s dominant streamer is now planning an animated feature film and TV series based on the animal adventure franchise, which is aimed at a middle school children’s audience.
The Redwall series comes with a large, built-in audience, having sold 30 million copies worldwide. The books chronicle the adventures of a society of heroic animals that inhabit the forest haven of Redwall Abbey.
It is the first time that the film rights to the entire series of books have been held by a single company and Netflix is already working on the adaptations for film and a series. The streamer has signed up Patrick McHale to write the script for a feature film. McHale previously created Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall and is currently working on Guillermo del Toro’s eagerly awaited Pinocchio reboot.
The Netflix series is based on the character of Martin the Warrior, a wise but ferocious mouse who co-founded Redwall Abbey along with Abbess Germaine, a peace-loving mouse who is a founder and the designer of the Redwall Abbey.
“Brian often travelled the globe to tell his Redwall stories to young audiences, more often than not at their schools,” said Alan Ingram of The Redwall Abbey Company, which owns Jacques’ intellectual property after he died in 2011. “Brian would have been very happy to see that Netflix shares his joy and desire to bring his stories to life as a new universe of films, series and potentially much more for audiences of all ages to enjoy.”
The Redwall books have previously been adapted into an animated TV series by Canada’s Teletoon, and the show aired in the US on PBS.