It's Disney+ Day, and as the studio celebrates the second anniversary of its streaming platform, the flood of news continues with the announcement (via Deadline) that a new adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles has been greenlit and ordered to series. Based on the children's book series by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, the Disney+ version will appear as a series on the streamer at some point in the future.
The story follows twins Jared and Simon Grace as they move with their mother and sister into an old mansion and discover a book written by a great-uncle named Arthur Spiderwick which functions as a guide to the world of magical creatures around them. They learn that the fearsome shape-shifting ogre called Mulgarath wants to exploit the book for his own nefarious reasons.
Aron Eli Coleite will serve as showrunner and executive producer as well as authors DiTerlizzi and Black, alongside Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell, D.J. Goldberg, and Julie Kane-Ritsch for The Gotham Group. The show is a joint production of Paramount Television Studios and 20th Television.
Aside from a 2011 video game, the 2008 movie directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls), remains the sole attempt to adapt the book series. The Field Guide, published in 2003, was followed by The Seeing Stone (2003), Lucinda's Secret (2003), The Ironwood Tree (2004), and The Wrath of Mulgarath (2004). These were followed by a second series of books called Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, comprised of The Nixie's Song (2007), A Giant Problem (2008), and The Wyrm King (2009). Should the Disney+ series prove popular, there is clearly plenty of source material to choose from.
2008's The Spiderwick Chronicles received decent reviews (which specifically praised Freddie Highmore's dual performances as the Grace twins), but its domestic box office take of $71 million fell short of its estimated $90 million budget. The movie did better overseas, for a combined international total of $164 million. Still, this was evidently not enough for Paramount and Nickelodeon to justify more entries.
There is no shortage of middle-grade and YA content on Disney+, but The Spiderwick Chronicles is a bit more high-profile than many of them. This new adaptation follows the path of Netflix's version of A Series of Unfortunate Events, based on the books by Lemony Snicket. After the 2004 movie starring Jim Carrey failed to launch a franchise, Netflix created a show that ran for three seasons and was much more faithful to the source novels. We'll find out if The Spiderwick Chronicles and the books' standard but entertaining Hero's Journey formula remains popular enough for the new series to break through. Check out the newly released concept art and poster below:
