Just a month-and-a-half after Disney+ decided to ditch its live-action series adaptation of Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black’s children’s fantasy books “The Spiderwick Chronicles,” the series has been picked up by Roku exclusively for the U.S. market.
Paramount Television Studios and 20th Television had already shot and completed the eight-episode series when Disney opted not to move forward as a means of cost-cutting, and concerns over the tone which is said to be dark.
Paramount decided to shop it around to other potential buyers with Roku taking the U.S. rights with plans for an early 2024 release via its The Roku Channel platform.
The story follows the Grace Family as they move into a dilapidated ancestral home and begin to unravel a dark mystery about their great-great Uncle who discovered a foreboding faerie world existing parallel to their own.
The new series is a modern coming-of-age story combined with fantasy adventure. Jack Dylan Grazer, Lyon Daniels, Noah Cottrell, Joy Bryant, Mychala Lee and Christian Slater star. Nickelodeon and Paramount previously adapted the property into a 2008 film.
The deal is seen as Roku’s most ambitious acquisition to date, far more than the remnants of the Quibi content library they acquired in 2021.
Source: Deadline
