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SYFY WIRE The Jim Henson Company

Neil Gaiman will script a revival of The Storyteller for The Jim Henson Company

By Matthew Jackson
John Hurt and Jim Henson on the set of The Storyteller

Fresh off the completion of his long-awaited adaptation of Good Omens, Neil Gaiman is ready to craft yet another fantasy series, and this time he's reviving a beloved classic.

Gaiman has teamed up with The Jim Henson Company and Fremantle Media (the company behind Gaiman's American Gods series on Starz) for a new version of The Storyteller, Jim Henson's 1987 anthology series that offered new interpretations of classic fairy and folk tales.

Gaiman will script the series and serve as an executive producer alongside Lisa Henson, CEO of the Jim Henson Company and Henson's daughter, who helped inspire the series with own her folklore studies. Like the original series, the new Storyteller will adapt various stories from folklore, but will be updated "for the bingeing kind" of audience, according to Gaiman.

Speaking to Deadline, Gaiman outlined his starting point for the series.

“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.”

Gaiman is a self-taught expert in fairy tales and folklore, and has spoken frequently of his childhood love of mythology that ultimately translated into a career as a storyteller himself. Stories like The Sandman and American Gods frequently deal with characters from folklore and mythology, and in 2017 he released Norse Mythology, featuring his own retellings of several classic Norse myths.

The original Storyteller series featured scripts by Oscar winner Anthony Minghella, directed by Henson himself, among others, and John Hurt as the titular Storyteller. Sadly, Hurt died 2017, but Gaiman noted that he's hopeful other members of the original series cast might return for the series. In terms of direction, Henson also noted that she hopes they can find filmmakers who "can do the most innovative work with puppetry."

There's no word yet on when we might see this new version of The Storyteller, or where it might land, but with Gaiman involved, this is a project that will surely attract more top-tier talent in the near future.

What do you think? Are you ready for more of The Storyteller?