Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree series inspires new film

The film adaptation of the Famous Five may already be on the way, but now another set of Enid Blyton’s much loved characters are to make their way on to the big screen.

The Faraway Tree series, which tells of the adventures of three children who stumble upon an enormous magic tree in an enchanted forest, is to be adapted into a live action film by director Sam Mendes’s production company.

The four books that make up Blyton’s children’s series – The Enchanted Wood, The Magic Faraway Tree, The Folk of Faraway Tree and Up the Faraway tree – were penned between 1939 and 1951. Yet 60 years on, the tales of Jo, Bessie and Fanny and the quirkily named collection of fantastical treetop friends, such as Moon-Face, Mister Watzisname, Silky and the Saucepan Man, have remained consistently popular with children around the world.

Unlike the Famous Five, this will be the first time a film version of the Faraway Tree books will have been made. The project has been taken on by Neal Street Productions, whose previous films include the Oscar-nominated Revolutionary Road as well as the recent stage adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Pippa Harris, who co-founded Neal Street Productions with Sam Mendes, said: “The Magic Faraway Tree is one of the most loved children’s books series from an iconic author whose work has been adored by generations. To be able to adapt these for the big screen is incredibly exciting.”

The deal for the film adaptation was signed with publishers Hachette, who acquired the Enid Blyton estate, made up of over 800 novels and short stories, in 2012.

Marlene Johnson, head of children’s books at Hachette, said: “Enid Blyton was a passionate advocate of children’s storytelling, and The Magic Faraway Tree is a fantastic example of her creative imagination.”

The Faraway Tree film is just one of numerous recent projects reviving Enid Blyton’s vast and much-loved canon of work for a modern audience, part of a long-term project by Hachette to “catapult Enid Blyton into contemporary society”.

In July, UK production company, Working Title, acquired the theatrical rights to the whole library of the Famous Five series, spanning more than 20 titles, with the intention of making a live-action film series based around the books. Old Vic Productions have also confirmed they had acquired stage rights to Famous Five and were looking to launch a musical version of the five’s adventures. The books themselves also underwent a “language update” in 2011, to make them more relatable for a new generation of readers.

Blyton died in 1968 but is still one of the biggest selling children’s authors of all time. Since their publication over half a century ago, her books sold more than 500m copies worldwide in 40 languages.