The BBC is making Watership Down as a four-part animated mini-series, and Netflix will be the exclusive distributor of the series outside of the UK. The 4-hour CG-animated series will premiere on BBC One in the UK next year.
Based on Richard Adams’ novel about a colony of rabbits scrapping for their lives, the story has once before received the animation treatment in Martin Rosen’s unconventionally violent 1978 feature, considered classic enough to receive the Criterion treatment. The new series will be written by Tom Bidwell (My Mad Fat Diary) and directed by Noam Murro (300: Rise of the Empire).
Dublin, Ireland-based Brown Bag Films (Doc McStuffins, Bing, Peter Rabbit) is creating the CG animation. The animation team is led by Pete Dodd (Fantastic Mr Fox, Frankenweenie), who is co-directing, and Hugo Sands, who is producing. The series is a co-production between BBC One and Netflix and produced by 42 and Noam Murro’s company Biscuit Films.
