‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ Among Roald Dahl Stories Coming to Netflix

In its quest to subsume all of the beloved children’s properties in the English-language canon, Netflix notched another coup, this time through the more youthful stories of author Roald Dahl.

Netflix announced Tuesday that it has reached a deal with The Roald Dahl Story Company that would allow it to produce animated series based on a number of Dahl’s novels and short stories, including “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The BFG,” “Matilda,” and “The Twits.”

In all, the deal covers 16 different properties, including less well-known (and still beloved) titles like “Esio Trot,” “The Enormous Crocodile,” and “Billy and the Minpins.” (The conspicuous absence of “The Witches” indicates that this is not an all-encompassing deal.)

In describing the upcoming programming, Netflix’s statement explained that these would not just be direct adaptations, but would “remain faithful to the quintessential spirit and tone of Dahl while also building out an imaginative story universe that expands far beyond the pages of the books themselves.”

Of course, this news comes not long after Steven Spielberg’s 2016 live-action adaptation of “The BFG,” which did not achieve the financial success that previous screen versions of Dahl stories had enjoyed. Tim Burton’s adaptation of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was one of the 10 highest-grossing films of 2005 worldwide, taking in over $475 million in the international box office, over double the eventual total for “The BFG.”

This Dahl partnership is also the latest youth-oriented acquisition for the streaming service, which is set to release a prequel series for “The Dark Crystal” in 2019 and has also announced that a live-action version of the “Avatar: The Last Airbender” story is also in the works.

Netflix celebrated the partnership with this Wonka-adjacent announcement below:

Tuesday’s announcement revealed that production would start on this new slate of series next year.