Warner Brothers – specifically, the Warner Animation Group – has signed a deal with Dr. Seuss Enterprises, giving the studio exclusive rights to produce film and television adaptations of Seuss’s children’s books and characters, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The studio began its partnership with the Seuss estate when it landed a Green Eggs and Ham television adaptation back in 2015. That series, which is co-executive-produced by Ellen Degernes, will air on Netflix later this year.
The first project in the exclusive WB/Seuss partnership will be a feature-length animated adaptation of the 1957 Seuss book The Cat in the Hat. It was previously turned into an animated television special in 1971 and a stunningly terrible live-action film, with Mike Myers in the title role, in 2003. (It was also the basis for an animated PBS series titled The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That, which is still in production and apparently unaffected by the WB deal.)
The new deal apparently marks the end of the Seuss estate’s work with Universal’s Illumination, which had produced an animated film of The Lorax in 2012 and is releasing a new film of The Grinch later this year (with Benedict Cumberbatch voicing the title role).