While the characters in the Lemony Snicket books may go through a series of unfortunate events, everything is coming up fortunate for fans of the novels. Netflix just took a huge step in bringing the beloved A Series of Unfortunate Events franchise to streaming audiences everywhere by looping in two familiar names to take over the creative side of things. Still no Jim Carrey though, for better or worse.
Taking on directorial duties, seemingly for the entire season (since Netflix doesn’t do pilots), will be Barry Sonnenfeld, probably best known for his work on the three Men in Black films and the Addams Family movies, as well as Get Shorty. He’s got a pretty great visual approach to his movies that the Unfortunate Events series would definitely need, and he’s no stranger to eye-catching television either, having won an Emmy award for working on the first episode of Bryan Fuller’s lush music-filled comedy Pushing Daisies. He also directed The Tick pilot and episodes of Notes from the Underbelly, so he should feel right at home on a serialized gig like this.
Filling the role of showrunner, as well as executive producer, will be Mark Hudis, who was most recently a showrunner and writer on the later seasons of True Blood. He’s also worked on shows such as That ‘70s Show and Nurse Jackie as a writer and executive producer, and the latter of which earned him his only Emmy nomination. Hudis’ latest work is on Ron Perlman’s Amazon drama Hand of God, which just released its first season to subscribers today.
Lemony Snicket himself – real name Daniel Handler – will also be an executive producer on this small screen adaptation, which will center on orphans Klaus, Sunny and Violet Baudelaire and their tenacious relationship with distant cousin and temporary guardian Count Olaf, who continually tries to hunt them down wherever they go. There are currently 13 novels in the Unfortunate Events series, with some other works, such as the Lemony Snicket autobiography, that expand the central universe. The franchise has lived on through a video game, card game and board game, and was turned into the 2004 live-action film from Brad Siberling, with Jim Carrey in the role of Count Olaf. The Netflix series was first announced in November of last year, and this is basically the first news that has come out about it since then.
According to Variety, there’s no telling just yet what kind of a production schedule A Series of Unfortunate Events will adhere to, and given Netflix has to wait until an entire season is complete before debuting it for viewers, we’ll probably still be waiting at least a year until Count Olaf makes our lives a fantastical hell. Hopefully casting and more news will begin surfacing before too much longer.
