Skydance Media To Produce Live-Action ‘Miraculous – Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir’
Skydance Media is betting big on animation. Not only is the company aggressively growing its one-year-old animation division, but it announced on Wednesday that it has acquired live-action film and television rights to the French superhero-romance series Miraculous – Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir.
Under the deal, Skydance plans to develop and produce the first-ever live-action adaptations based on the popular animated series, with an anticipated release in 2020. Developed and produced by Jeremy Zag, the animated series follows two heroes—Ladybug and Cat Noir — as they protect the city of Paris from super-villains.
Miraculous has continued to grow in popularity since debuting in 2015. Last month, the animated series won the Teen Choice Award for animated series, a remarkable accomplishment considering that the other nominees in the category were all major American series: Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, Rick and Morty, The Simpsons, and Steven Universe. The show currently airs in over 120 countries, and has almost 900,000 subscribers to its Youtube page, as well as 350 licensees worldwide for consumer products. Merchandise passed the $100 million mark in retail sales in 2017.
“Jeremy and everyone at Zag have done a tremendous job in creating and building Miraculous into the massive pop culture sensation it is today,” said Jesse Sisgold, president and COO Skydance Media. “We look forward to partnering with them to expand this incredible universe into the world of live-action.”
“I am thrilled to partner with Skydance to create live-action adaptations of Miraculous. It’s been my long-time dream to bring this world to life,” said Jeremy Zag, founder and CEO of Zag. “The Skydance team really understands and embraces the vision we have for this very special super hero love story. They have an incredible track record of producing exciting action with compelling characters and are the perfect team to express the magic and adventure of Ladybug and Cat Noir.”
The most recent third season of the animated series was produced by Zag’s animation studio Zagtoon and Method Animation.
If you’re unfamiliar with the series, here’s the set-up:
Miraculous – Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir follows the adventures of two seemingly typical teens with secret identities, Marinette and Adrien, who magically transform into superheroes, Ladybug and Cat Noir. As secret superheroes Ladybug and Cat Noir are partners in the action. But in the daytime, Marinette is just a normal girl, living a normal life. Cat Noir will do anything to support and impress Ladybug, but does not know this is Marinette from his class. Marinette, the regular girl, in turn dreams of Adrien and simply gets little response. When evil threatens Paris, their beloved City of Lights, can they beat the unexpected villains? Miraculous taps into first love, secrets, friends, magic, duality and the romance of Paris.