It’s back to the frontier as Netflix reboots Little House on the Prairie

Netflix will be hoping a Little House on the Prairie reboot has what it takes to delight a new generation of viewers.

The fresh adaptation of the beloved historical drama will follow the adventures and adversities of the Ingalls family on their farm in the American frontier in the late 19th century.

The 1974 television series starred Michael Landon as Charles Ingalls.Credit: SHD Television Magazine

Little House on the Prairie was the third book in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s semi-autobiographical series of nine books. It was the basis for the TV series of the same name that starred Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, which was a major hit in the 1970s and ’80s.

The original series was produced by Ed Friendly, whose son Trip will executive produce the reboot for Netflix under the family outfit Friendly Family Productions.

“It has been a long-held dream of mine to carry on my father’s legacy,” Friendly told online site Deadline.

Friendly first flagged the project was in development in 2020, telling Entertainment Weekly he had discussed with his father a possible return to the Prairie before the latter’s death in 2007.

“I really felt it would be exciting to reboot the material,” Friendly said.

The project will also be a labour of love for showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine, who has served as a writer and producer on The Boys and The Vampire Diaries, shows that could hardly be more different in tone than the original Prairie series.

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s semi-autobiographical book is a beloved children’s classic.

Sonnenshine said she first fell in love with the books when she was five years old. “They inspired me to become a writer and a filmmaker, and I am honoured and thrilled to be adapting these stories for a new audience,” she told Deadline.

Netflix will be counting on fans transferring their enduring affection for the Ingalls saga from the original TV series to the new version.

According to media trend tracker Nielsen, the original – which ran for nine seasons from 1974 to 1983 – was one of last year’s most viewed library titles on streaming in North America, clocking up 13.25 billion minutes of viewing on streamer Peacock in 2024, the 50th anniversary of the series’ first episode.

The Ingalls books remain enormously popular too, having sold more than 73 million copies in more than 100 countries, and been translated into at least 27 languages since they were first published in the 1930s, according to Netflix’s blog site Tudum.

Little House on the Prairie will join a host of Western frontier series commissioned by Netflix, including the recently released drama American Primeval and 2017’s multi-Emmy winning Godless.

The trials and tribulations of life in the Wild West have proven time and again to be fertile ground for television creators, as evidenced in the multi-award-winning HBO series Deadwood and more recently by the incredibly successful Yellowstone and its various spin-off series.

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