Netflix has picked up the rights to make new films and TV shows based around Adrian Mole, Bioshock, Dragon’s Lair and a lot more.
Original post: 8th February. Update: 15th February.
There’s been a lot going down at Netflix over the last few weeks, even in its trademark registration office. Among the projects registered just since the start of 2022 are several fascinating projects.
Amongst these is what seems to be a new adaptation of Sue Townsend’s Adrian Moles books. The registration is for ‘The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 & 2 other titles', which presumably refers to the full series of books, right through to The Prostate Years. This registration has been made in the name of Netflix, Lily Broadway Productions, the estate of Sue Townsend and The Sue Townsend Discretionary Trust.
OUR BEST EVER SUBSCRIPTION OFFER!
Try three issues of Film Stories magazine – for just £1: right here!
It has been a long time since I’ve read the original Mole diary – in fact, Adrian himself would have been my senior at the time – but I do remember the later books better, and have always thought of Townsend as a rather skilled satirist. With the right team, I’d be delighted to see Netflix take another stab at this.
Perhaps the biggest, splashiest, most expensive promise comes with the registration of Bioshock trademarks. And we’re now hearing that an announcement of Netflix’s Bioshock project is arriving any day.
The trademarks it’s registered refer to the original game, as well as Bioshock 2, Infinite and Rapture. Quite what elements will be used in Netflix’s adaptation remains to be seen, but this year’s registration clears the way for them all – at least as far as trademarks are concerned.
Also in the works is an adaptation of Don Bluth’s laser-disc powered Space Ace arcade game – this was the raygun version of Dragon’s Lair and might make for a good interactive special in the Cat Burglar vein, maybe? Two other, mysteriously unnamed, titles are part of the same registration – the two Dragon’s Lair games are possible contenders, though this would not necessarily constitute new news as Netflix and Dragon’s Lair have been dancing around one another for some years now.
Further titles in the list of registrations are Christopher Edge’s sci-fi adventure book Space Oddity; Royden Lepp’s cracking agripunk mech-farmer comic series Rust, which once upon a time was linked to Attack The Block's Joe Cornish; Mark Waid’s superhero series Incorruptible, also from Boom; and Georgina Cross’ thriller Nanny Needed.
Meanwhile, Dreamworks has optioned the book series Lowriders in Space and Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat, and while they might be set for feature film adaptation, we’re hunching that they’ll be Netflix series too. Probably. Ish.
What happens next with each of these? We’ll have to wait and see. But paper is being pushed, registrations are being… um… registered, and money, it seems, has been spent. We can look forward to seeing them all in the coming years, though Netflix’s cone of silence might mean we don’t hear a whole lot in the meantime.
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
