Netflix continues its quest to reanimate our childhoods by acquiring the rights to Brian Jacques’s Redwall book series. The streamer has plans for an animated feature film and TV series based on the children’s fantasy novels. Patrick McHale, creator of Cartoon Network’s autumnal adventure Over the Garden Wall, has been tapped to write a feature based on the first book in the series, Redwall. Netflix will also create a TV series based on the character Martin the Warrior, co-founder of Redwall Abbey. The books, which have sold over 30 million copies worldwide across decades, follow the feats of the mice, moles, badgers, and hares living in Redwall Abbey, surrounded by a forest called the Mossflower Wood. The courageous creatures must become warriors to defend their home from “vermin†like rats, weasels, and foxes. If you give a mouse a sword … they’ll celebrate their conquests with decadently described feasts of mushroom flan, beetroot pie, caldrons of acorn stew, and, of course, kegs of dandelion beer.
It’s the first time the film rights to the entire series have been held by one company and would be the first feature film made of Jacques’s work. The beloved author died in 2011. The 22nd and final novel in the series, The Rogue Crew, was released posthumously that year. “Brian often travelled the globe to tell his Redwall stories to young audiences, more often than not at their schools,†said Alan Ingram, representative of the Redwall Abbey Company, owners of Jacques’s intellectual property, in a statement. “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.â€