One of this weekend’s most promising new streaming releases for younger crowds is no doubt the long-awaited book-to-screen adaptation of the fairy-tale fantasy adventures of Michael Buckley’s The Sisters Grimm, which is now available to stream via Apple TV+ subscription. Though the superb illustrations from Peter Ferguson aren’t on display, Titmouse’s talented animators successfully brought Sabrina, Daphne, Relda and the rest to life, with the six-episode first season adapting the first Fairy Tale Detectives novel. But don’t go thinking that was a quick and easy process for the author.
CinemaBlend spoke with Michael Buckley (alongside showrunner Amy Higgins) ahead of the new animated series hitting the 2025 TV schedule, and both were extremely happy to have a fully fleshed out SIsters Grimm series to discuss. Given the first novel was published in 2005, with another eight books released over the next seven years or so, it seems like we should have been on the second or third attempt to adapt the books, but this is the indeed the first attempt that went all the way.
When I asked Buckley about how long an adaptation has been in the works, he confirmed that it’s essentially been something of a 20-year process, albeit not always a constant one. Here’s what he told me:
Since day one, really. I mean, there was always somebody trying to adapt it, and some of those adaptations were good, and a lot of them were not. Then Amy came along and just, she’s just the Sisters Grimm whisperer. She gets it. So I could just take a breath, finally, over all this time.
One of the strangest things about Hollywood adaptations, at least to me, is the idea that an author’s work is valued enough to pay for the rights to adapt it, but that work so often gets muddled and cheapened by other creatives putting their own stamps on it. That’s something Buckley dealt with, and he wasn’t exactly at liberty to demand any changes. As he explained:
Because when you sign that option agreement, what you can contribute anymore is really just like, a lot of talk. A lot of times, they’ll say things like, ‘Oh, we want to be in the Michael Buckley business,’ until you sign the contract, and then they would prefer if you just went away. I tried to be as respectful and keep my distance [with the new show], but I meddled, and Amy was sweet enough to put up with my craziness sometimes.
For all the dismissiveness that he dealt with in prior attempts, it sounds like Michael Buckley truly meshed well with Amy Higgins once she got on board, as she not only wanted to bring his stories to the screen as they were told, but also welcomed his input behind the scenes.
To that end, Michael Buckley championed Higgins’ work here, saying that this is an adaptation where fans won’t have any troubles recognizing that it comes from the Sisters Grimm books. As he put it:
But I do think that what she managed to shepherd together is an adaptation I’m very proud of. Very rarely do authors love the TV [shows] and movies that are made of their work. But I will say, in this case, I am genuinely overjoyed. Like, anybody who read this when they were nine or they’re reading it now, they’re going to see and recognize what I wrote, and hopefully they’ll get the same kind of buzzy, happy energy that I get when I watch it.
The Sisters Grimm is thankfully very far from the worst fairy tale movies and TV shows out there, and I can only hope that enough people binge-watch the season on Apple TV+ so that the rest of Buckley’s books can find new life in animation.
With voice work from Modern Family‘s Ariel Winter and Kindergarten: The Musical‘s Leah Newman (niece to Randy Newman), and co-starring SNL vet Laraine Newman and Ted Lasso‘s Billy Harris, The Sisters Grimm is currently available to stream in full on Apple TV+, so quit talking to magic mirrors and start watching.