Netflix, CBC adapting Anne of Green Gables

Streaming service Netflix and Canadian pubcaster CBC are hooking up on their second scripted coproduction, this time working up a version of a classic novel.

The pair has given the greenlight to ANNE, which is based on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables.

A separate, younger-skewing version of the book, titled Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and for kids network YTV, debuted in Canada earlier this year and is being sold internationallly by Breakthrough Entertainment.

This comes soon after they partnered to create Alias Grace, a six-part miniseries based on a Margaret Atwood novel of the same name. That show is in production this month.

Both co-commissions mark a significant thawing of relations between Netflix and CBC, with the pubcaster in July 2014 demanding the streamer be forced to invest in local content.

Netflix will stream ANNE globally next year, with CBC playing it on Canadian linear TV. It will kick off with a two-hour special episode from director Niki Caro (Whale Rider).

Moira Walley-Beckett (Breaking Bad) and Miranda de Pencier will showrun, with production falling under the latter’s banner, Northwood Entertainment. The pair developed the series and are executive producers, alongside Alison Owen (Saving Mr. Banks) and Devra Howard (Bridget Jones Diary).

Walley-Beckett is writing the first season, with production set to begin in September in Canada. Susan Murdoch is producer.

ANNE centres on an orphaned girl, Anne Shirley, in 1890, who is mistakenly sent to live with an elderly spinster and ends u[p transforming the small town they live in through her imagination, spirit and intellect.

“Anne Shirley is one of Canada’s greatest gifts to the world, known and loved internationally, so we’re thrilled to be working with the CBC and Northwood to bring this charismatic character to both new and old fans around the world,” said Elizabeth Bradley, Netflix’s vice president of content.