Artemis Fowl is getting a second chance at screen life, and this time his creator is in the room. Disney has greenlit an animated Artemis Fowl series for Disney Channel and Disney+, Deadline reported, with author Eoin Colfer attached as executive producer. Colfer dropped the news himself at New York Comic-Con on October 11, 2026, during a panel built around the 25th anniversary of the first book.
The Comic-Con reveal
The setting could not have been more on the nose. Per Deadline, the announcement came during a panel titled “25 Years of Artemis Fowl,” timed to mark a quarter century since the first novel hit shelves in 2001. If you were a kid who read about a 12-year-old criminal mastermind kidnapping a fairy and thought, “yes, this is my personality now,” congratulations, you are old enough to have a mortgage.
Colfer, who has spent two and a half decades watching other people interpret his teenage antihero, sounded genuinely cheerful about this one. “I am proud and delighted to be part of the formidable team that is putting the Artemis Fowl animation on screen,” he said, via Deadline. “Everyone is so talented and so positive that I feel certain the fairy world is in excellent hands.”
That phrase, “in excellent hands,” is doing a lot of work for longtime fans, and we will get to why.
Who is actually making it
According to Variety, Colfer will serve as executive producer on the series. He is joined, Deadline reported, by Ben Juwono and Colleen Evanson as fellow executive producers. Juwono is an Emmy and Annie Award winner whose credits include Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur and Big Hero 6: The Series. Evanson’s résumé includes DuckTales and Monsters at Work.
In other words, the people steering this are not strangers to the specific art of making animated adventure shows that kids obsess over and parents secretly enjoy. DuckTales in particular has a loyal following that still gets misty about it, so Evanson’s involvement will raise some eyebrows in a good way.
Variety describes the series as an action-adventure fantasy following 13-year-old genius Artemis Fowl as he uncovers an underground world of high-tech fairies and plans to steal one’s magic to save his dying mother. That is a tidy summary of the premise that launched the whole franchise, with the emotional engine, the sick mother, front and center.
Ayo Davis, president of Disney Kids & Family, issued a statement, Deadline reported. “For more than two decades, Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl books have captivated readers around the world with unforgettable characters, imaginative world-building, and gripping adventures,” Davis said. “Bringing this beloved franchise to life as an animated series gives us the opportunity to introduce a new generation to Artemis’ world while honoring the longtime fans who have cherished these stories for years.”
The elephant in the fairy fort
Now, about those longtime fans. They have been burned before.
Disney’s live-action Artemis Fowl film was released directly on Disney+ on June 12, 2020, as Just Jared noted, six years before this animated announcement. Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Ferdia Shaw as Artemis alongside Colin Farrell, the movie was supposed to get a theatrical run before the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled those plans and sent it straight to streaming. It received negative critical reviews, and the fan response was, to put it gently, not warm.
So the question hanging over this new project is obvious: can a cartoon succeed where a big-budget Branagh film did not?
There are a few reasons for optimism. The first is Colfer himself. Having the author as an executive producer does not guarantee anything, but it does mean someone in the creative conversation knows exactly why readers fell for this character in the first place. The second is the format. The books are stuffed with gadgets, underground cities, time-stopping fairy tech and a very large bodyguard named Butler, all of which tend to play better in animation than in a live-action budget meeting. The third is the talent, with Juwono and Evanson bringing serious animated-series credentials.
The books themselves are no small thing to live up to. The series spans eight novels, has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide, and has been translated into 48 languages. That is a global fanbase with strong opinions and long memories.
What we still don’t know
Here is where the enthusiasm has to pause. Variety, Deadline and Just Jared all reported the greenlight, but as of October 11, 2026, none of them disclosed a premiere date, an episode order, a voice cast or an animation studio. So reportedly, there is nothing on the calendar yet, and no actor has been named to voice the boy genius.
That means we are in the wait-and-see phase. The pitch is appealing, the team looks sharp and the creator is happy. Whether that adds up to the redemption fans have been hoping for since 2020 will depend on what shows up on screen, whenever it shows up.
For now, Artemis Fowl is 25, he has a new series on the way, and his author is calling the whole thing a formidable team. After the last go-round, that is more than enough to get the fairy world’s hopes up again.
