BBC Studios, Kadokawa Developing Live-Action ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ Series Based On Original Novels

BBC Studios and Japanese publishing giant Kadokawa are teaming up to bring Kiki’s Delivery Service back to screens, this time as a live-action television series based on author Eiko Kadono’s beloved fantasy novels, which also inspired Hayao Miyazaki’s 1989 Studio Ghibli classic.

The project, announced this week, is being developed as a 10-episode series. According to reports, the adaptation will draw primarily from the first book in Kadono’s six-volume series and follow young witch Kiki as she leaves home to begin her year of independent training in the seaside city of Koriko, where she launches a flying delivery business.

The series is being produced by BBC Studios, Kadokawa, and the London-based production company Wheelhouse. While no casting, creative team, or release window has been announced, the involvement of BBC Studios perhaps indicates that a global-reaching adaptation is the plan.

Although most readers will immediately associate Kiki’s Delivery Service with Miyazaki’s film, the new project is rooted in Kadono’s original novels rather than that animated adaptation. That distinction could give the series room to explore material that never made it into the Ghibli feature and justify the show’s existence to hardcore, anti-live-action-remake fans.

It’s worth noting that this will not be the first live-action take on the property. Kadokawa previously produced a Japanese live-action feature film adaptation in 2014, directed by Takashi Shimizu.

For now, the series remains in development, but it represents one of the highest-profile attempts yet to create a live-action adaptation of the Japanese fantasy property for an international TV audience.