ANIMORPHS Is Getting a Disney+ Series With Ryan Coogler Producing
There’s a new wave of YA adaptations heading to streaming, and this one taps straight into ‘90s nostalgia with a sci-fi twist. Animorphs is officially being developed as a TV series at Disney+, bringing the fan-favorite book series back into the spotlight with some serious creative talent attached.
According to reports, Bayan Wolcott is set to write and executive produce the series. He’s joined by Ryan Coogler, along with Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler, producing through Proximity Media.
On the Scholastic side, Iole Lucchese and Caitlin Friedman are also executive producing, with 20th Television serving as the studio. Proximity’s Simone Harris and Dezi Gallegos will oversee development.
The story sticks close to what made the books such a hit in the first place. The official logline teases that the story “follows a group of teenagers who uncover a hidden threat lurking beneath their everyday lives, all while juggling relationships, curfews, and the chaos of High School.”
If you grew up flipping through these books, you already know things get way more intense and weird than your average teen drama.
Created by Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant, the original series centered on five teens Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias who discover Earth is under quiet invasion by parasitic aliens known as Yeerks.
Their lives change when they encounter a dying Andalite, an alien warrior fighting the Yeerks across the galaxy. Before he dies, he gives them the power to morph into any animal they touch by absorbing its DNA.
Using this ability, the group forms a secret resistance, balancing homework and high school stress with literal alien warfare. Later, they’re joined by Ax, a young Andalite stranded on Earth, expanding the scope of the fight and the mythology.
The scope of the original run is pretty massive. There were 54 mainline books, starting with Animorphs: The Invasion in 1996 and wrapping up with Animorphs: The Beginning in 2001.
Each story rotated perspectives between the core characters, which gave the series a surprisingly emotional edge. On top of that, companion titles like The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, The Andalite Chronicles, and Visser expanded the universe even further. Altogether, the franchise has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.
Wolcott brings a solid TV background into the mix. He recently worked as a supervising producer on The Testaments at Hulu and previously wrote for Class of ’09 at FX. His credits also include The Summer I Turned Pretty and Impeachment: American Crime Story, so he’s no stranger to character-driven storytelling.
As for Coogler, he’s staying busy under his overall deal with Disney. In addition to this project, he’s developing a reboot of The X-Files starring Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel. He’s also coming off major awards success with Sinners, which picked up four Oscars, including best original screenplay for Coogler.
This isn’t the first time Animorphs has hit the screen. A live-action series aired on Nickelodeon from 1998 to 2000, starring Shawn Ashmore, Brooke Nevin, Boris Cabrera, Nadia Nascimento, Christopher Ralph, Paulo Costanzo, and Eugene Lipinski. There was also an attempt to launch a film adaptation back in 2020, but that project never came together.
Disney+ has been leaning hard into YA adaptations lately, and it’s paying off. Percy Jackson and the Olympians is already heading into its third season, while a live-action Eragon series is in the works. The platform also previously ran a Goosebumps series based on R.L. Stine’s books.
Now we just have to wait and see how wild those morph sequences get.
Source: Variety