Artemis Fowl Gets a Second Wish as Disney Tries Again in Animation

Disney has greenlit an animated Artemis Fowl series for Disney Channel and Disney+. Eoin Colfer broke the news himself on Sunday at New York Comic Con’s “25 Years of Artemis Fowl” panel. He executive produces alongside Ben Juwono (Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Big Hero 6: The Series) and Colleen Evanson (DuckTales, Monsters at Work). There’s no premiere date and no voice cast yet, just a first poster and a press release.

The setup stays faithful to the 2001 original. A 13-year-old genius uncovers an underground world of armed, dangerous and alarmingly high-tech fairies, then plots to capture one and steal its magic to heal his dying mother and save his family. Colfer once summed the books up as Die Hard with fairies. It remains the finest elevator pitch in children’s publishing since “boy goes to wizard school”.

Disney has, of course, been here before. Kenneth Branagh’s 2020 film was shunted from cinemas onto Disney+ during the first lockdown summer. It somehow mislaid the books’ central joke, which is that Artemis is the villain. It also gave Dame Judi Dench a “Top o’ the morning” that the Irish tourist board is still trying to live down. The reviews were lukewarm, and in 2023 the film quietly vanished from the service during a content cull. That was less a burial than a witness protection programme.

Animation is a much better fit. LEPrecon’s tech, Foaly’s gadgets, time-stops and troll rampages would all bankrupt a live-action budget, and they’re exactly what animation does best. Juwono’s Moon Girl was among the most visually confident TV animation Disney has made lately, which bodes well. The real test is tone. Artemis works because he’s a ruthless little criminal mastermind who grows a conscience slowly, over eight books, and he shouldn’t be sanded smooth into a misunderstood scamp.

Colfer, for his part, declares himself certain the fairy world is “in excellent hands”. With 35 million copies sold across 48 languages, there’s an audience waiting, and many of the original readers now have children of their own to inflict it on. Here at SFcrowsnest we’re cautiously optimistic. Twenty-five years after the first book, Artemis gets another crack at the fairy gold. Let’s hope Disney remembers which side of the law he started on.