Netflix to adapt A Series of Unfortunate Events with help from Lemony Snicket

The 2004 film adaptation took $200m at the box office (Paramount)

Netflix's next original is to be a new TV series adaptation of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, "risking its reputation and its success by associating itself with dismaying and upsetting books".

The show will hopefully go down better than the 2004 film version of the beloved series, which starred Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep.

Published between 1999 and 2006, the 13 books saw orphans Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire caught up in various misadventures in an alternate 19th century-esque world.

"I can’t believe it," Snicket commented. "After years of providing top-quality entertainment on demand, Netflix is risking its reputation and its success by associating itself with my dismaying and upsetting books."

A Netflix spokesperson added: "Mr. Snicket’s participation will be limited, given his emotional distress, but the project has the full involvement of his legal, literary and social representative Daniel Handler, who is often mistaken for him."

The show will be produced in association with Paramount.

Netflix has been on a commissioning spree lately, with four Adam Sandler movies and a Chelsea Handler chat show among the new shows on the way.