BBC Announces Live-Action Kiki’s Delivery Service TV Series

In the history of witches in movies and television, few are more beloved than Kiki, the energetic young bow-haired brunette at the center of Kiki’s Delivery Service. The 1989 Studio Ghibli movie that made her famous remains a family classic. You can’t improve on it…which is why the BBC isn’t going to try.

At first, the news of a Kiki’s Delivery Service live-action TV show sounds blasphemous, but you have to realize what’s going on here. BBC is not remaking the animated movie and elongating its plot in unnatural ways. They’re creating their own adaption of the original novel first published in 1985 by Eiko Kadono. Kiki’s Delivery Service was a novel before it was a movie.

In fact, Kadono wrote SIX Kiki novels, and so far, only the first has been adapted into anything. This gives the BBC production the potential to take the story where no adaption has gone before, assuming it lasts long enough to do that. The first season, which will be 10 episodes long, is another adaption of Book 1.

A live-action take on Kiki’s Delivery Service already exists: Takashi Shimizu directed a feature film in 2014. The fact that most of you are probably learning about it through this sentence should tell you how well it was received.

“Kiki is one of fiction’s great girl characters and I’m thrilled to be part of bringing her to life in this new adaptation,” says series writer Irena Brignull. “Embodying the magic that exists in re-invention and human connection, she shows us what’s possible when you venture boldly and big-heartedly into the world to find a sense of purpose.”

“We cannot imagine a more exciting tribute to the landmark 40th anniversary of this classic book series than this partnership,” adds Takeo Kodera, director of international co-productions at Kadokawa. “The UK creative team has absorbed the spirit of Kiki through their close collaboration with Ms. Kadono, and the results will enchant family audiences everywhere.”

The Kiki TV show is currently under development with no shooting time scheduled yet.