U.K.-based Coolabi Productions (Clangers, Scream Street, Poppy Cat) has signed a deal with China’s Tencent Video to develop its global publishing phenomenon Warrior Cats for television and film. Tencent Video, in collaboration with Coolabi, will work with the original characters and storylines to create the first official animated adaptations, aimed a global audiences.
Warrior Cats is a hugely successful feline fantasy book series about clans of wild cats, created by Working Partners, a Coolabi Group company. The Erin Hunter-penned series has sold over 70 million books to date which have been translated into 38 languages and been a fixture on the New York Times bestseller list for the last 16 years. The property has already expanded to graphic novels and games.
The brand has a huge and passionate fanbase across the world, garnering over 1.7 million annual users on the official Warrior Cats website last year, half a billion views across user generated content on YouTube in 2023 alone plus almost 2 billion views on TikTok. The Warrior Cats: Ultimate Edition game on Roblox is consistently one of the highest-ranking branded games on the platform and has been played more than 430 million times.
“We are delighted to have concluded an agreement with Tencent Video which will see Warrior Cats brought to animated life around the world,” said Jeremy Banks, CEO of Coolabi Group. “Official animation has consistently been top of the list of requests made of us by the enormous global community of Warrior Cats fans and I cannot think of a better partner to collaborate with. My team and I could not be more excited about working with the wonderful team at Tencent Video and look forward to seeing Warriors Cats on screens, big and small, across the world.”
