'Netflix' teaser for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events looks brilliant - but is it real?

Forget the 2004 film adaptation, the 13 books were made for a TV serialisation

The first teaser for Netflix's adaptation of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

The first teaser for Netflix’s adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events appeared to have been released on Sunday – and it looked like the streaming service had nailed the tone of the children’s Gothic noir.

Featuring beetles running out of a gramophone, dirty plates strewn with maggots, a monster-like creature bearing its teeth in a jar and a huge spider running across a table, the very convincing-looking teaser for the TV series pointed to some seriously creepy action.

Netflix has sought to downplay the release of the clip, with a spokesperson telling Variety that it didn't come from them and was "not anything official".

The short, 35-second clip was uploaded to YouTube by a user called Eleanora Poe, making it certainly appear like a leaked teaser. But discerning readers will remember Poe as the editor of fictitious The Daily Punctilio, who notoriously fires the books’ narrator Snicket for writing a bad review of a play.

A Series of Unfortunate Events was adapted into a film in 2004, with comedian Jim Carrey playing the Baudelaire orphans’ nasty uncle Count Olaf.

Netflix announced a TV series based on the 13 books by Lemony Snicket, the pen name for author Daniel Handler, in November 2014. Whether this week's YouTube video was an untimely leak - or an exceptional piece of fan-made tomfoolery - remains to be seen.

Casting for the series, which is due to debut in 2016, has yet to be announced.