Neil Gaiman To Retell Jim Henson’s THE STORYTELLER

The Storyteller was an anthology show created by Jim Henson that aired in 1987 and used actors and puppets to tell strange and obscure folk tales. It ran for 9 episodes, with a 4-episode "Greek Myths" spinoff, and won a BAFTA and an Emmy for its trouble. Henson directed several episodes. Anthony Minghella wrote all of them. It's got a good reputation.

Now, the Henson Company is rebooting (or rather, simply getting more episodes made of) the series, alongside FremantleMedia and - most tantalisingly - fantasy superwriter Neil Gaiman. It will return to the mystical, magical world of fairy tales created by the original series, while being updated in format for the binge-watching era.

As for what that will look like, Gaiman says the series will delve into the character of the Storyteller himself (originally played by the late John Hurt). As quoted on Deadline:

“Part of what fascinates me about The Storyteller is the stuff that we don’t know.,” he said. “Who was the Storyteller, why was he telling these stories, was he a goblin, what kind of creature? What I’d love to do is an inside story that’s as long as the outside story. We’re going to find out a lot about who the storyteller is, we’re going to find out things we don’t even know that we don’t know. We’re going to begin in a Northern kingdom where stories are forbidden and where the act of telling a story is liable and can get you imprisoned or executed. If you put a storyteller into that situation, things would need to start getting interactive.”

While I'm not entirely sure about making the show less of an anthology and more of a sustained narrative, I get why it's happening, and ultimately the reboot is good news. There's nothing like The Storyteller out there at the moment, unless you count the comics that Henson has been producing recently, and it'll be great to see the Henson Company getting back to the fantastical stuff it's so good at.

No network or service is attached to air The Storyteller yet, but the producers are looking to reach "the broadest audience possible," and the Henson Company has dealt with Netflix before, so...it's probably going to be Netflix. Unless Disney+ really, really takes off.