Hidden Pigeon takes flight
Karen Miller, president and CEO of Hidden Pigeon Company, discusses the prodco’s slate of projects and ambitions to take content based on author Mo Willems’ children’s books around the world.
Karen Miller
Hidden Pigeon Company, set up by Stampede Ventures, RedBird Capital Partners and American children’s author-illustrator Mo Willems, recently turned two.
The New York- and LA-based company was launched to adapt Willems’ catalogue of children’s books and IP across a variety of media including TV, film, digital, gaming, live events, publishing, consumer products and location-based experiences.
In January this year, Karen Miller, a former Disney, Warner Bros and NBCUniversal exec joined Hidden Pigeon from Cyber Group Studios to become president and CEO. Six months later, Miller says she is living the dream, having been a fan of Willems’ books for the last 20 years. In fact, the exec had pitched some of the author’s earlier works when they were first published to her bosses at Warner Bros, but was turned down.
Twenty years on, Miller is now leading a development slate of at least six projects based on Willems’ books which she hopes will become global successes.
The first project is a TV show based on the 25-strong Elephant & Piggie book series, which aims to teach early readers about the importance of friendship and how to deal with life’s problems. Hidden Pigeon is currently working through offers it has received from streamers and broadcasters for the series, ahead of a potential premiere in late 2026.
Other projects include a TV show based on Willems’ flagship Pigeon book series, which comprises 10 books about the escapades of a pigeon, and a potential feature film based on the author’s three Knuffle Bunny books about a little girl and her stuffed toy bunny. Hidden Pigeon plans to take the Pigeon series to market at Mipcom this year.
“There are 73-plus books so far in his [Willems’] catalogue,” Miller says. “So we’re going through that and trying to identify something we could set up perhaps at PBS or something we could take out first in Europe, build it in Europe and then bring it into the US. We’re looking at different opportunities based on different territories and awareness around the world.”
Already out in the world are various digital series which Hidden Pigeon has produced and that are available on YouTube. These include The Pigeon Explains, currently in its second season, which is a live-action show with a pigeon puppet built by Sesame Street’s puppet builders.
Elephant & Piggie will be Hidden Pigeon’s first project
Another is Knuffle Bunny Across America, in which the stuffed toy bunny is sent to different cities on an adventure to discover how real kids across the US live.
Also working on Hidden Pigeon’s content slate is Peacock alum Kristofer Updike, who was appointed senior VP of creative in April and is working alongside Willems and executive producer and showrunner Tim McKeon to oversee all TV and theatrical creative.
“We’re in a very favourable position. Mo has been publishing books for 20-plus years so there is an emotional connection to what he writes and he has the benefit of having an audience that’s continuing to emerge,” Miller says.
“What buyers have noticed is that all the rights are intact. You have a living author who’s going to continue to write, who is authentic in what he writes and in his engagement with the audience. And then you have these amazing works of art that have stood the test of time, whose messages remain consistent and also are global.”
In the next few years, Miller hopes Hidden Pigeon will have multiple global series on air in its mission to expand the Mo Willems brand across the world.
“Everything is going to be an opportunity,’ she says. ‘We have such a strong base of content and it’s connected so well with the audience that I think we have a huge opportunity ahead of us. We’re also well supported by Stampede Ventures and RedBird Capital, so we have the engine to help support everything we’re doing. The future is very bright.”
