Over the summer, Disney joined the time-honored tradition of saying “What? No, I didn’t order that…” when asked to pay for something that it did, indeed, order (much like Warner Bros. when it came time to release Batgirl), with the studio canceling its new adaptation of Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black’s The Spiderwick ChroniclesSpiderwick fanbase after the disappointing movie from 15 years ago.
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But dry those tears, Spiderwick fanbase, because the show will live on as a Roku original! Now, that’s not exactly pre-Zaslav HBO in terms of prestige (most other Roku exclusives were born on Quibi, after all), but The Roku Channel is better than no-ku channel, which is where The Spiderwick Chronicles would be ending up after Disney killed it if not for Roku picking it up. In a statement shared by Deadline, Roku Head Of Originals Bryan Tannenbaum said, “We cannot wait to introduce this exquisitely crafted series, imagined by a world-class creative team, to millions of streamers.”
The series, led by Joy Bryant, Jack Dylan Grazer, Lyon Daniels, Noah Cottrell, Mychala Lee, and Christian Slater (as the villain, Mulgarath), is about a family finding a book full of magical mythology about fairies and other mystical creatures. Deadline also notes that this is the “most ambitious series to date” to land on The Roku Channel, which probably means that it won’t live on past this debut season (Roku isn’t known for throwing Disney-level money at its originals, as much as we all liked Weird), but the platform could surprise us all if this ends up being a big hit—and that would also be a nice “screw you” to Disney for killing it in the first place.