This was published 3 months ago
Andy Lee’s books have sold 3.5 million copies. Now comes the TV series
By Karl Quinn
Andy Lee is used to doing things at his own pace – which is to say, pretty fast. But his latest project has moved at a crawl. And he doesn’t mind it one bit.
“It takes so bloody long, but there’s something nice about that,” he says of the process of turning his best-selling children’s book series, which began with Do Not Open This Book in 2016, into an animated TV series for the ABC.
“I compare it with my podcast, which Hamish [Blake] and I knock out in around 45 minutes and it goes out overnight. I love how quick and creative it is. But on this, an individual drawing of how someone’s hair or eyebrows might look, depending on what vowel shape they’re making with their mouth … it’s a different type of intricacy, which is also good.”
Andy Lee at Richmond Primary School with his nephews Freddy (left) and George Miles (right). The other students are (rear from left to right) Nikolas Daglis and Cece Dragovic; (front from left to right) Grace Miller, Manuela Valente and Theodore Ang.Credit: Daniel Mahon
The nine books in Lee’s series have sold more than 3.5 million copies globally, and have been translated into 38 languages. Recently, he was invited to a book fair in Portugal, where he spent hours signing books for hundreds of people. He was stunned to learn he’s a big deal there and in Brazil (“the translators must be really good”, he observes), even if the US has proven a tougher nut to crack. “But there’s about to be a new launch there in the coming months,” he says optimistically.
It all bodes well for the prospects of the animated series, which will be made in Victoria, with funding support from VicScreen and Screen Australia. Leo Baker, who worked on Shaun Tan’s Oscar-winning short animation The Lost Thing, will direct the 12 x 11-minute episodes of Do Not Watch This Show. The series is expected to take about a year to make – at a cost of about $5.3 million – and will have with a crew of about 70.
Andy Lee with his nephew George, for whom he wrote the book in 2016 as a first birthday present. George is now aged nine.
VicScreen chief executive Caroline Pitcher says the success of Lee’s books internationally proves “Victorian creative ideas can resonate with global audiences”, while adapting them for the screen at home was confirmation that “quality Australian children’s content is so important to our culture”.
It might well have not happened here, though.
About 2018, Lee was in talks with DreamWorks Animation about a big-budget Hollywood studio adaptation of the book he wrote as a first birthday present for his nephew George (now aged nine). He went through three development workshops in about six months, but soon realised he was unlikely to retain the degree of creative control he wanted if he pursued that path.
By mutual consent, both parties pulled the pin, but Lee says it was far from a fruitless exercise.
“They were fantastic to work with, and they’ve been helpful since,” he says. “I’ve gone back and shown them what I’ve been doing, and they’ve given me advice and have been tremendous to work with. There seems to be a real warmth about getting great projects up.”
They also offered insights into his work that helped him see it anew. “They were telling me things about my book that I didn’t realise, like it encourages kids to take risks in a world where we’re not really encouraging kids to take risks.
“‘Do not open this book’ or ‘Do not watch this show’ in itself is exciting. It’s a chance for kids to defy, or at least question, things they’re being told. And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah. I didn’t realise the importance of that.’ It just seemed like a fun idea at the time.”
The hero of Lee’s books is a blue monster. And the hero of the ABC’s children’s line-up also happens to be blue. Is there an omen in that?
“Well, my character started out as yellow, but I thought, ‘Hang on, I know the trick to success is the colour blue,’” Lee jokes.
“To be honest, it’s been an incredible help. Bluey paved the way, and got people interested. When I first started talking to DreamWorks six years ago, they were saying, ‘We can’t have Australian accents.’ Now all the streaming platforms and studios I talk to are saying, ‘Keep it in Australian accents.’
“If we have one-tenth of the uptake of Bluey, that would be extraordinary.”
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