Magic Faraway Tree set for cinema?

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

I LOVE Simon Farnaby's work - and provided he read the books as a boy, I have more faith in him than most.

Here's a few of (Death's) favourite things...

https://horriblehistoriestv.wixsite.com ... ite-things

[Moonraker]

Thanks for the info Anita - another one for me to avoid I think!

That's two of us.

[Moonraker]

I also feel like rolling my eyes at "updated for a contemporary audience" — as if there was anything in the original Faraway Tree books that might seriously offend modern sensibilities???

I remember watching the TV cartoon series of these books with my (then) 6 year-old gr/d. She loved them, and we watched them over and over again.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Deadline have had a chat with Ben Gregor, director of the Faraway Tree film. It's not due to be released until Christmas 2025:

https://deadline.com/2024/02/enid-blyto ... 235827544/


Some snippets from the interview:

DEADLINE: Can you set out the context for this new contemporary adaptation?

GREGOR: The story is about Fran, this anxious young child. Her family lives on the campus of a big hi-tech company in London. It’s a comfortable home but there’s the seductive sterility of modern living. They’re all in separate rooms. When the mum loses her job, they end up in a ramshackle barn. It’s kind of a Swiss Family Robinson thing. From the kids’ perspective, it’s more like The Mosquito Coast, where the dad’s like, “This is gonna be great. We’re gonna come together”. And they’re like, “Sure, Dad”.

They think it’s hell but the youngest one, Fran, goes into the woods and it’s beautiful. We’ve got this amazing piece of woodland to film in on these incredible estates, it’s really untouched. It’s like a timeless piece of England that is just pristine and beautiful.


DEADLINE: Can you elaborate about what you said about the film tapping into the impact of the pandemic on childhood?

GREGOR: The kids in the film end up defending a way of life that they really hated to start with. They realise that it’s actually more fun. It’s not an anti-technology movie, but rather an anti-isolation movie. For me, that really resonates. Watching kids come out of Covid, watching kids go back into the world and the anxiety, anxiousness, they’re not used to it. Without overtly talking about it, that is heart, the engine of the film, that sort of heartfelt excitement about getting back into the world in a Narnia way but also the joy and the fun of it.


DEADLINE: Enid Blyton’s work is still beloved by parents and children around the world, but the writer’s image has taken a knock in recent years due to accusations that she was racist, xenophobic and homophobic. Are you concerned that this could impact the reception of the film?

GREGOR: She was of her time. I think that she was a genius and The Magic Faraway Tree is the most fantastical stuff that she wrote. It’s about getting what she wrote and the vividness of her imagination and making sure that we shoot it in a way that feels contemporary.

The last TV show I did was Black Ops, which was thoroughly diverse, and I’m very keen to have a very diverse cast and crew on this and as we did on that.

We’re pushing to make sure it feels modern and that no one can ever say that about our interpretation of it, while still staying true to her sort of zany creative vision, because quite frankly, it’s zany stuff that she’s coming up with.

It has to be diverse to be part of a modern Britain, modern Europe. I come from a Czech background. My dad came over in the 1968 Prague Spring to finish his medical studies in the United Kingdom.

I grew up with waifs and strays at our Christmas dinners, people who didn’t quite fit in. I’m really keen in my work to address the feeling of fitting in and the film is about that. Fran feels like she can’t talk to anyone. She’s anxious but then she is included by the Faraway Tree gang who are affable and pull her along. I want to make an inclusive, vibrant and loving, funny film.


DEADLINE: Looking at the concept art, the scale is ambitious. Will there be a lot of VFX?

GREGOR: We’re building these lovely sets so that the actors will be able to experience what’s happening rather than standing in front of a green screen. I’m definitely embracing VFX. I love special effects. We’ve put the VFX into the art department so that they’re in at the very early stages. We’re working with Tim Ledbury who worked a lot with Wes Anderson, Tim Burton, on Harry Potter. He’s brilliant.

Having Tim in the art department, means we can make the movie punch above its budget because we’re not fixing things in the effects afterwards.


DEADLINE: Is this the beginning of a franchise? Are there plans to adapt the other books in the series?

GREGOR: We’re only in production on the first one but we were building the sets to be used again and again.


DEADLINE: So with shooting scheduled to begin in June, what is the planned release date?

GREGOR: Christmas ’25. It’s a family Christmas movie.

[Debbie]

That sounds hopeful. He clearly loves the books and is excited by them.

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Agreed.

The Folk of the Faraway Tree are Diversity personified

But what has happened to her brother and sister - it seems to be about just one child, F(r)anny?

[Anita Bensoussane]

Ben Gregor focuses on Fran in the interview but her siblings are in the film too. Like Fran, they're called by their updated names (Joe and Beth) but to me the three children will always be Jo, Bessie and Fanny.

[TheAngryPixie]

Sounds pretty rubbish.

Contemporary setting is one of those phrases alongside "reimagined for a modern audience" that when it appears in the description or synopsis, pretty much dooms a TV or series into being gash.