An image from the Playstation game "The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout Anthology"

Forthright Entertainment, LLC

In 2021, the streamer revealed it had acquired the rights to all 22 of the Redwall books to create multiple TV series and a feature film from the IP.

At the time, the deal was seen as major coup for Penguin Random House, which controls the rights to the novels.

“We couldn’t be more delighted to announce this deal,” said Ben Horslen, Fiction Publisher, Penguin Random House Children’s. “These perennially popular stories have been etched onto the hearts of millions of readers, and we are thrilled to partner with Netflix to bring those beloved characters on screen for families worldwide to enjoy."

But the project had long been rumored to have been in trouble.

Netflix hired writer Patrick McHale, who wrote Cartoon Network series Over the Garden Wall, to write a feature film based on the story of Redwall. But McHale exited the project in 2023, and there hadn’t been much of a public update on the project since then. In interviews at the time, McHale told journalists he believed the project would become a series instead of a full-length film.

It’s not clear how far those plans progressed, but the Netflix web site has a stub page for a project entitled Redwall: The Movie with this description:

Novice mouse Matthias dwells in the peaceful confines of Redwall Abbey and dreams of becoming a noble warrior. When a rat warlord threatens Matthias’s beloved home, he embarks on an epic adventure that leads him to the great warrior mouse Martin.

The project page listed Dean Howard as the director and a cast list that included Marion Day, Adrian Egan, David Hemblem, Keith Knight, Julie Lemieux, Diego Matamoros, Tracey Moore, Alison Pill, Wayne Robson, Tyrone Savage, John Stocker, Chris Wiggins and Janet Wright.

That level of information suggest the project was far enough along at some point to have a specific cast in place. Although it’s not clear if the film ever officially began production.

Netflix also planned a limited series focused on Martin the Warrior, the mouse co-founder of Redwall Abbey, who is a main character in many of the novels and an overall spiritual guide for the series.

However, those plans apparently never progressed past the planning stages and Netflix recently allowed its option on Jacques’ works to lapse, with the rights reverting back to Penguin Random House.

While the book firm controls the rights to the novels, the overall IP is controlled by The Redwall Abbey Company, which was set up in 1994. Jacques did in 2011.