Brian Jacques’ beloved tales of anthropomorphic mouse monks, battle badgers, and heroic hares are getting the Netflix adaptation treatment and this sort of makes up for the fact that Mouse Guard got cancelled (which I’m definitely not still bitter about).
Partnering with Penguin Random House Children, Netflix will be adapting the first book in the series, Redwall, into an animated film and then will focus on the character Martin the Warrior for an event series. The Redwall film is being written by Patrick McHale (Over the Garden Wall).
Redwall, for the uninitiated, is a series of 21 novels by Brian Jacques revolving around the adventures of anthropomorphic animals most often found in the English countryside, centred on the eponymous Redwall Abbey. Due to some pretty serious species-ism, the good guys are generally cuddly herbivores or omnivores like mice, badgers, rabbits, and hedgehogs, while the villains are predators like foxes, stoats, wildcats, and weasels. They frequently battle each other with sword and claw for a variety of reasons (think Game of Thrones but furry) over great spans of time. There’s also a lot of page space devoted to the preparation of meals.
Martin the Warrior (a mouse) is a heroic figure in the series and founder of Redwall Abbey, so the event series will potentially follow his rise from lowly slave to legend.
Redwall was previously adapted for television in 1999.
Via Variety.