StudioCanal and David Heyman's Heyday Films have spent years building one of the most reliable children's IP pipelines in the business. Now the two are turning to Scandinavia.
StudioCanal is developing a Pippi Longstocking animated TV series with Heyday Films, Submarine, and The Astrid Lindgren Company. The Paddington and Paddington 2 producing partners first considered a theatrical film before ultimately settling on a modern television retelling of the Longstocking character.
Screenwriter Sara Daddy is penning the script for a 3D CGI series about the kind girl with the red pigtails. Daddy is a multi-award-winning head writer whose credits include The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland, Olga da Polga, and Tulipop Tales.
StudioCanal will handle worldwide distribution for the 52-episode, 11-minute-per-episode format, with StudioCanal Kids & Family managing merchandising and licensing across France and the UK. Production is set to begin in October.
First appearing in print in 1945, the Pippi Longstocking books grew out of bedtime stories Swedish author Astrid Lindgren told her daughter. The series has since been translated into 80 languages, with more than 90 million copies sold worldwide. Previous adaptations include Columbia Pictures' 1988 theatrical release The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking.
Heyday Films was founded in 1997 by David Heyman and is best known for producing the Harry Potter film series. In 2025, Amazon MGM Studios announced that Heyman would oversee future installments in the James Bond franchise through Heyday Films. The studio has quietly become one of Britain's most prolific homes for beloved literary adaptations.
The Stockholm-based Astrid Lindgren Company owns and manages all publishing, film, TV, stage, music, merchandising, and theme park rights to works by Lindgren. Its involvement signals a careful, protective approach to the source material.
Heyday producers David Heyman, Rosie Alison, and Rob Silva spoke to the ambition behind the project. "Pippi Longstocking is a beloved icon, with her uniquely unpredictable way of seeing the world. Joyful, free-spirited, playful, contrary, kind, fiercely resilient, she questions all the rules of the game, and her originality remains as fresh as ever. We could not be more excited about unleashing Pippi once again in her own new animated series, collaborating with a kindred spirit writer Sara Daddy, the brilliantly inventive animating team at Submarine, the Astrid Lindgren Company, and StudioCanal," the trio said in a joint statement.
StudioCanal CEO Anna Marsh also weighed in. "We are thrilled to collaborate with The Astrid Lindgren Company, Heyday Films, and Submarine on the brilliant, timeless, fearless and unmistakable Pippi Longstocking," Marsh said, adding that "Sara Daddy truly encompasses Pippi's irrepressible life force, iconic strength of character, boundless imagination and joie de vivre."
With production locked in for October 2026 and StudioCanal handling worldwide distribution, the series is positioned for a broad international rollout. StudioCanal has also expanded the Paddington IP into a hit West End stage musical, suggesting the company has a longer-term franchise strategy in mind for Pippi as well.
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