Charlotte’s Web has a new friend coming to the barnyard. Luke Matheny, the director at the helm of Apple TV+’s children’s mystery show Ghostwriter, will be picking up a pen (or a web) and getting to work. He’ll serve the new HBO Max series as head writer and executive producer. Eying a release to both the streaming service and Cartoon Network in 2024, the series will begin production next month. Charlotte’s Web will get to work under Sesame Workshop and WarnerMedia Kids & Family, a partnership that has found mega-success with pieces including Sesame Street Mecha Builders and The Nutcracker.
The series will center around the book of the same name written by E.B. White which was initially published in 1952. A classic story read in classrooms over the last seven decades, Charlotte’s Web follows the unlikely friendship between a livestock pig named Wilbur and a barn spider named Charlotte. Wilbur soon finds his life threatened by the farmer, so Charlotte makes a plan to help her friend out. She begins spinning messages in her web, hoping that with the rest of the farm in Wilbur’s corner, the farmer will have no choice but to let him off the hook.
An incredibly popular story both on and off the pages, Charlotte’s Web has spawned multiple adaptations over the years. First, it got its on-screen makeover in the form of an animated 1973 Hanna-Barbera film which featured the vocal work of Debbie Reynolds (Singin’ in the Rain) as Charlotte with Henry Gibson (The ‘Burbs) as Wilbur. Thirty-three years later, in 2006, the heartwarming tale got another reboot in the form of a live-action CGI hybrid that starred Dakota Fanning, Julia Roberts, Steve Buscemi, Thomas Haden Church, and Oprah Winfrey.
Now, almost 20 years after its last reimagining, Charlotte and Wilbur’s friendship will return to screens all over again. Making it all possible is Martha White, the granddaughter of the late White, who runs the author’s literary estate. In a statement released along with the show’s announcement, she told fans they could expect “a very promising series” that would use the team’s “creative talents” to bring her grandfather’s “timeless story” to life.
And White isn’t the only one excited for Charlotte’s Web to make its re-debut to households everywhere. Kay Wilson Stallings, EVP of Creative and Production at Sesame Workshop, is confident that her company will be the right fit to give a “faithful retelling of one of the most beloved children’s novels of all time.” With a production company that has been in the biz for over 50 years, Wilson Stallings says they have plenty of experience in “weaving stories that center memorable characters and diverse, compelling voices.”
Many who remember the 1973 adaptation are now grandparents, and those who watched the 2006 version are beginning to move into their own parenthood — Sesame Workshop’s remake of Charlotte’s Web is sure to bring new and old fans alike to the legendary story of a spider and a pig.