Netflix to Roll Out Grim New Retelling of “Pollyanna” Next Fall
Moira Walley-Beckett to Return as Director
*IT’S SATIRE, GUYS*
Riding high on the success of Anne With an E, the stark re-imagining of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s beloved 1908 classic (which seemed to have gained most of its audience from sworn defenders of the 1985 version eager to trash any new attempts at a screen adaptation), Netflix has announced that it will be sinking its teeth into another poor little orphan girl: Pollyanna.
Moira Walley-Beckett, who directed the controversial Anne treatment, will also be at the helm of Netflix’ adaptation of Eleanor H. Porter’s 1913 novel of the perpetually optimistic orphan whose obnoxious efforts to find the bright side of everything see her through everything from orphan-hood to paralysis.
“I couldn’t be more pleased,” Walley-Beckett reported. “I so enjoyed the opportunity to read between the lines of Anne of Green Gables and find those dark themes and that morbid introspection that is hiding just behind the surface of Montgomery’s text, so I’m definitely looking forward to doing the same for Pollyanna Whittier, who I feel is a very misunderstood character. I feel like Disney has already covered the ‘glad this, glad that’ Pollyanna, but we’re going to be digging a little deeper this time.”
Netflix is keeping Pollyanna: The Glad Game under pretty tight wraps, but Walley-Beckett has hinted that alcoholism may be portrayed as a factor in Pollyanna’s relentless optimism. She is also exploring a more realistic portrayal of how people might respond to someone like Pollyanna, so it’s not unlikely that bullying may become a central theme.
