‘The Grimm Legacy’ in the Works for Disney+

With Disney+ set to debut later this year, Walt Disney Studios is hard at work developing original content for the streaming service. According to a new report from Deadline, the new platform could end up launching a film franchise based on The Grimm Legacy series of young adult novels.

The report says that Disney has tapped David Gleeson to pen a script adapting the novels for their new streaming app, presumably in an effort to build a franchise on the service.

The series written by Polly Shulman — and first published in 2010— consists of The Grimm Legacy, The Wells Bequest, and The Poe Estate. The stories follow a group of teens as they working in an old library that rents out magical items in place of books.

Most recently, Gleeson helped write Tolkien for Fox Searchlight. He also wrote a supernatural thriller Don’t Go for IFC Films.

The news comes at a time where Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted that the House of Mouse is open to licensing titles to put on their fancy new service. On an earnings call earlier in the day, Iger compared the licensing of content to business moves they already make in their theme parks, being sure to point out the licensing agreement the company has with Fox for Avatar rides.

“I think the strategy will be long term pretty heavily weighted toward internally sourced,” Iger told investors, but “there will be occasion where we will be glad to license from third parties. Because the Fox deal hasn’t closed yet — so we can’t take advantage of some of their capabilities — and because we need to launch the [Disney+] service with some volume and it takes time to ramp up, we’re buying certain products form the outside opportunistically.”

“We’ll continue to look at opportunities that we think we can leverage because there’s a potential consumer demand for them,” Iger said.

Jane Goldenring and Evan Shapiro of eshapTV or producing The Grimm Legacy for Disney+. As of yet, there is no indication of when the new streaming service will launch, though it’s suspected to be later this year.

Have you read The Grimm Legacy? What other novels do you think Disney could adapt for live-action? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.