StudioCanal, fresh off the U.K. box-office success of Paddington 2, is building on its slate of family titles.
The growing studio is set to adapt Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree, having teamed with Neal Street Productions, the All3Media-owned company behind TV shows such as Penny Dreadful and Call the Midwife and films including Revolutionary Road and Jarhead.
Simon Farnaby — who co-wrote Paddington 2 with director Paul King — will pen the adaptation, with Neal Street’s Pippa Harris and Nicolas Brown producing.
Magic Faraway Tree — which will be the first-ever feature film based on Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree series — is set in an enchanted wood, in which the titular tree grows tall enough to reach the clouds and large enough to contain small houses. At the top of the tree is an ever-rotating series of fantastic worlds, everything from the Land of Birthdays to the Land of Topsy-Turvy.
Blyton — one of the world’s best-selling authors with sales in excess of 500 million copies — wrote four Magic Faraway Tree novels between 1939 and 1951. All have been optioned by Neal Street from Hachette Children’s Group, brand owners of Enid Blyton Entertainment, for development with StudioCanal.
“The Magic Faraway Tree books are a firework display of the imagination. The pages are lit up with wonderful characters, humor, peril and adventure,” said Farnaby. “Most homes have a well worn jam fingerprinted volume somewhere on their shelves. I’m very much looking forward to bringing the likes of the Old Saucepan Man and Dame Washalot to the big screen for fans both old and new.”
Added StudioCanal’s U.K. chief Danny Perkins: “Not unlike the work of Michael Bond CBE, we very much look forward to bringing enduring family classics to audiences worldwide.”
Neal Street’s Harris said: “I know that by partnering with StudioCanal and Simon Farnaby, we will be make sure that Moonface, Silky, Dame Washalot and Saucepan Man are in very safe hands.”
