Disney and Ryan Coogler Revive Animorphs Franchise for Disney+

Disney has officially revived Animorphs, the beloved 1990s sci-fi franchise based on K.A. Applegate's bestselling young-adult book series, for a new limited series on Disney+. Filmmaker Ryan Coogler will serve as executive producer through his Proximity Media banner, with Bayan Wolcott—known for her work on Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale spin-off The Testaments—attached as showrunner and writer. The project marks the second major attempt to adapt the franchise for television, following a two-season Nickelodeon series that premiered in 1998 and starred Shawn Ashmore.

The new Animorphs series will center on a group of teenagers who discover an alien threat beneath the surface of their world and must work together to stop it while managing typical high school life. According to the project's logline, the adaptation appears faithful to Applegate's original narrative, which featured parasitic Yeerk aliens seeking to conquer humanity through body possession and mind control. The teens gain the ability to transform into any animal they touch after learning of the threat from a dying Andalite extraterrestrial, enabling them to operate as an underground resistance against the galactic invasion.

Applegate's Animorphs book series, which ran from 1996 through 2001, comprised 54 mainline novels and numerous companion books, each told in first-person perspective from different characters' viewpoints. The series became known for its sophisticated exploration of dark themes uncommon in young-adult fiction, including body horror, warfare, dehumanization, and imperialism. The iconic cover art by David B. Mattingly became a defining visual element of the franchise. Publisher Scholastic is backing the new production alongside Disney, with Iole Lucchese and Caitlin Friedman serving as executive producers. Coogler continues to expand his slate of 1990s sci-fi revivals, having previously been announced as the executive producer behind an X-Files reboot for Hulu.