Netflix, BBC meet on Watership Down

The original Watership Down film brought out the darker elements of the book

Netflix is teaming up with UK pubcaster the BBC on a new adaptation of Richard Adams’ novel Watership Down.

The four-part animation – a coproduction from the US SVoD service and the BBC – will feature the voices of A-list actors James McAvoy, Ben Kingsley and Gemma Arterton.

Commissioned by the BBC, Watership Down will be made by independent production company 42 and director Noam Murro’s Biscuit Films. Tom Tidwell (My Mad Fat Diary) will write the new version.

The animation team is led by Pete Dodd (Fantastic Mr Fox, Frankenweenie) and Hugo Sands; along with animation studio Brown Bag Films, based in Dublin. It will be distributed internationally by ITV Studios Global Entertainment.

The 1978 Watership Down film, which featured the voices of Richard Briers and John Hurt as rabbits Fiver and Hazel, has often been cited as too violent for afternoon viewing on UK television. It is understood this new version, which will again focus on a community of rabbits in southern England, will give a more heroic role to the female characters in Adams’ novel.

To date, this is the BBC’s biggest collaboration with Netflix after the pair previously announced they were working on BBC1 drama River. The budget on Watership Down is set to be close to £20m (US$29m).

Former BBC TV chief Danny Cohen previously said that that the corporation couldn’t compete with the deep pockets of Netflix, after the US streamer took the rights to forthcoming royal family drama The Crown.

The new Watership Down adaptation will air next year on BBC1 and premiere on Netflix worldwide.

In 2005, Canada’s CTV announced it was developing a dark live-action/CGI version of Watership Down, a coproduction between Canada’s Capri Films and UK indie Alltime.

In related news, Netflix has ordered another instalment of the Wet Hot American Summer franchise.

The show made the jump from movie to series last year, when Netflix unveiled Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.

The streamer has now ordered Wet Hot Summer: 10 Years Later (8×30’), which will roll out on the service in 2017.