The Spiderwick Chronicles Creator On Love Of Original Books & Making 1 Key Change

Summary Aron Eli Coleite worked "hand-in-hand" with authors Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi to adapt The Spiderwick Chronicles into the TV show, namely on the various changes to the source material.

The creator/showrunner went through a "global search" to find the perfect actors to play Jared and Simon.

Coleite is also the "biggest Christian Slater fan" and was over-the-moon thrilled to get to cast him as the villainous Mulgarath for the show.

Aron Eli Coleite looks to keep his TV success streak going with The Spiderwick Chronicles. Prior to the Roku Channel show, the creative had been involved in everything from NBC's Heroes to ABC's The River and Paramount+'s Star Trek: Discovery. More recently, Coleite made a name for himself as the co-creator of the Netflix post-apocalyptic comedy Daybreak, which only ran for one season in spite of strong reviews, and as the co-developer of the platform's Locke & Key adaptation.

Based on Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi's fantasy novels of the same name, The Spiderwick Chronicles centers on the Grace family, comprised of recently divorced mother Helen, daughter and eldest sibling Mallory and twin brothers Jared and Simon. Following the split from their father and behavioral problems from Jared, the group are forced to move in to the Spiderwick Estate, their family's ancestral home in a small Midwest town. Shortly after arriving, Jared comes to learn of the existence of magical creatures in the world with his great-grandfather's Field Guide, as well as an evil force looking to acquire it.

Related The Spiderwick Chronicles Season 1 Review: The Dark Fantasy Series Is A Breath Of Fresh Air The Spiderwick Chronicles season 1 is a win as a book adaptation, providing an exciting first chapter for what could be a multi-season fan-favorite.

Lyon Daniels and Noah Cottrell lead the ensemble Spiderwick Chronicles cast as Jared and Simon alongside Mychala Lee as Mallory, Jack Dylan Grazer as the mischievous Thimbletack, Joy Bryant as Helen, Christian Slater as the villainous Mulgarath and Alyvia Alyn Lind. In addition to Coleite, the show is executive produced by Black and DiTerlizzi, with the authors collaborating with the showrunner to develop the adaptation. Originally set up at Disney+, the show was later acquired by The Roku Channel for release.

Ahead of the show's premiere, Screen Rant interviewed Aron Eli Coleite to discuss The Spiderwick Chronicles, how he approached adapting the books in comparison to the 2009 movie, the one key change he made from the source material, and why Slater was perfect for Mulgarath.

Coleite's Biggest Intended Change For The Spiderwick Chronicles Was To "Age It Up"

While the original books and 2009 movie depicted Jared and Simon as nine years old and Mallory as 13, The Spiderwick Chronicles show ultimately ages the siblings up, still keeping them a few years apart, though all now in their high school years. For Coleite, this was one of the key changes needed for the show in order to explore one theme "in the DNA of the books":

Aron Eli Coleite: I mean, there's a number of different things. I think the first one is we always intended to age it up, and in aging it up, we could talk about — all the issues that we talked about within the series are in the DNA of the books. And it was one of the things that in rereading the book when I was preparing to do the adaptation, Jared's mental health issues, his anxiety, his depression really came to the forefront, and I wanted to have a venue to be able to talk about it, and not like directly, but also through allegory, and talk about what it means to be perceived as somebody who's monstrous, and what that does. So, in aging it up, it gave us this awesome ability to actually talk about these real issues. And it happened at a point when — my four-year anniversary of being on Spiderwick is a week ago last week — I read it right in the beginning of the pandemic, and I saw what my own kids were going through, how they were struggling with depression. And I thought that this was an amazing story that can actually speak to them and make it okay to have these emotions and destigmatize it. So, that was one of the major things.

The other major change Coleite went into adapting the books was changing the actual discovery of the Spiderwick Field Guide itself, with Jared and Simon finding it complete in the source material, while the show instead invites them to embark on a journey throughout their new town to discover the missing pages. The creator/showrunner assures that Black and DiTerlizzi worked "hand-in-hand" with him to develop this new approach, which he hopes keeps longtime fans guessing:

Aron Eli Coleite: And then from there, it was also working really hand-in-hand with Tony and Holly of, "Hey, books are different, movies are different, TV shows are different. We need drive, we need propulsion." So, we also had to change the notion of finding the field guide complete in the attic, which happens in the book and the movie. Then it becomes a different type of show, it becomes about guarding this thing that everybody wants. And that's really difficult to sustain for eight episodes, or seasons long. So, that led us to the more quest-style storytelling, and hopefully tricking the audience, and especially the diehard Spiderwick fans, that when they see the field guide, they're like, "Oh, my God, there it is. There it is." And it's empty. It also subverts expectations, because one of the things that's really important for us to do is there's a lot of huge Spiderwick fans out there, and they love the books, and they love the movie, and I love them too. But we want to give them something still Spiderwick, but a little bit different, so that they even don't know what's going to come around the next corner.

Finding The Perfect Stars For The Grace Siblings Required A "Global Search"

Unlike the Spiderwick Chronicles movie, in which Freddie Highmore played the dual role of Jared and Simon, Coleite elected on casting the Grace siblings with real twins, which proved to be a "hard" and "global search". Ultimately landing on the idea of casting fraternal twins instead of identical, the creator/showrunner felt the team "nailed it" by bringing Daniels and Cottrell onboard:

Aron Eli Coleite: Oof, it was hard. I wish we had all the money in the universe, and we could have pulled a Freddie Highmore and cast one actor to play both roles. But, I've done that before, it's really hard to do. It's time-consuming, you have to shoot one side, then they have to go change, then you have to shoot the other side, then you have to merge together. It is just time-consuming and difficult. So, finding two brothers that fit, and knowing that, look, we tried to find identical twins, it wasn't working. So, to find fraternal twins, who felt like their roles, took not only a nationwide search, it was a global search. We had our casting directors reaching out to the UK, to Australia, all over the world to find these kids and to see if they could match and merge. So, I feel very fortunate that we got Lyon and Noah, who not only play perfect twins and brothers, but they also are completely their roles. Lyon is a little bit of a rebel rouser, Noah is a little bit more conservative. So, seeing them inhabit these roles was like, "Oh, we did it perfect. We'd nailed it. Fantastic." And then, once we had them, we could build out the family from there.

The casting search for Mallory proved to be a little smoother for Coleite and his Spiderwick Chronicles team, recalling how it "happened really quickly" right before filming began after a "nationwide search", but that Lee was again the perfect choice for her role:

Aron Eli Coleite: So, getting Mychala was honestly like a coup, and almost happened really quickly before we started shooting. Again, another nationwide search, we had to find somebody who had Mallory's energy, her spirit and her strength. And when we saw Mychala, we were like, "It's just hands down. She's just such a strong warrior woman," and we're like, "This is perfect, because you are the knight of this piece, you are the knight of the story, so you need to be the fighter, and need to carry the sword." And she absolutely rose to the occasion.

Coleite Is The "Biggest Christian Slater Fan" & Was Over-The-Moon To Cast Him As Mulgarath

Another welcome change to Black and DiTerlizzi's novels is the larger presence of Mulgarath in The Spiderwick Chronicles' story, with Christian Slater bringing the villainous character to life. For Coleite, he is "the biggest Christian Slater fan" and couldn't believe the show was able to cast him in the role, even recalling the heartwarming bonding they had on set and the actor's supportive "leadership" role he took during production:

Aron Eli Coleite: We were casting a bit of a wider net, and we had lots of different thoughts about who it could be, or who the prototype could be. And when casting came back and said, "Hey, Christian Slater is interested," I about fell out of my chair. I'm the biggest Christian Slater fan, and even meeting him on set, I was like, "Hey, I have to tell you, Gleaming The Cube and Pump Up The Volume and Legend of Billie Jean are amongst my favorites. I feel like I've grown up with you." And he was like, "That makes me feel really old." And I'm like, "Dude, I'm right there with you. I'm as old as you, we are in this together." [Chuckles] But, there's a certain quality of Mulgarath that definitely harkens back to Jack Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick, of the manipulator, the devil in the town. You talked about chewing the scenery, I talked about giving him something delicious. It was so fun to write for him, and especially he was so game for it. He loved the humor of the character, and he loved that he could pivot from humor to sinister so quickly, and that he could have both of those going simultaneously. It was just a blast to work with him, and because he was always bringing that A game — a lot of people come, and they're like, "Yeah, it's a gig." This wasn't a gig. This was him really inhabiting this role and taking on such an enormous role of leadership on the crew, especially with our young actors, that he could demonstrate, "This is professionalism. You come and you're ready to work. You can ad lib, you can have fun, but this is work. Here we are, and let's go." He was so supportive of them, it was just wonderful to watch.

About The Spiderwick Chronicles

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The Grace family moves from Brooklyn, New York, to their ancestral home in Henson, Michigan, the Spiderwick Estate. Helen makes the move with her 15-year-old fraternal twin boys, Jared and Simon, and her older daughter, Mallory. Shortly after moving to the Spiderwick Estate, Jared discovers a boggart and realizes that magical creatures are real! The only one to believe him is his great-aunt Lucinda, who implores Jared to find the pages of her father’s field guide to magical creatures and protect them from the murderous Ogre, Mulgarath.

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Stay tuned for our other Spiderwick Chronicles interviews with:

Authors Holly Black & Tony DiTerlizzi

Christian Slater & Joy Bryant

Aron Eli Coleite (Post-Release Spoilers Interview)

The Spiderwick Chronicles is now streaming in full for free on The Roku Channel.

Source: Screen Rant Plus