In the modern-day world of Hollywood, intellectual properties are the name of the game. From comics to novel trilogies, Hollywood and the companies that populate it create films and series with beloved characters at their center. Some companies — Marvel and DC Comics in particular — have decided to connect all their content in shared universes so stories and characters can interact whenever they please. While the concept has led to surprising crossovers and moments in media, that doesn't mean every group of characters with common threads should be grouped together and crossover.
In September of this year, Netflix announced its deal with the Roald Dahl Story Company (or RDSC) to create a shared universe of films, shows, and more based on the children’s author’s works. The decision does mean fans are given more chances to view Dahl’s work in a new light, but is it really the best move forward — especially with newer films like The Witches and the upcoming Wonka?
The biggest argument against a Roald Dahl cinematic universe is obvious — it feels like a money-making opportunity more than anything. Roald Dahl’s characters and stories never crossed paths at any point in his books. The BFG and Wonka teaming up sounds like other modern-day crossovers but feels particularly out of place thanks to the original source material and its prolific author. Roald Dahl’s works like Matilda — which was brought to Broadway in a musical Netflix is already planning to adapt to the screen — and James and the Giant Peach are wonderful because they are self-contained stories, finite and meant to be wrapped up in a single book. Besides that, Dahl as an author often put his own lengthy commentary in his stories, which works well in the small doses of his books.
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A "Dahlverse" would mean stretching out these beloved stories and creating more background for characters. This strategy works well for other shared universes like the MCU or DCEU because there are dozens of issues of comics for each character, sometimes upwards of hundreds, to use for stories. Dahl wasn't keen on sequels or prequels or any of the spin-off jargon that Hollywood has created, so the only material available to potential directors and writers are the published books. While this does allow creatives to use all of their imagination on Dahl-based entertainment, it's very possible that the charm and voice of the author could get lost among the new plots and characters.
It's also unclear where previously made or non-Netflix films and media derived from Dahl’s work would fit in this new universe. If a shared universe is to be made from Roald Dahl’s work, then the "canon" of his work has to come into question as well. Which version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory do viewers take as definitive? Will every major book get its own new film in the name of rebooting it for the universe? Is the upcoming Wonka, a prequel following the factory owner directed by Paddington 2 director Paul King and starring Timothée Chalamet, null and void when another eventual film or series comes out from Netflix? For an author who has never had his respective films and series linked together, it feels off to do it now.
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Much like Dahl’s original books, Dahl adaptations have also been self-contained or one-off films made by directors who have no plans for spin-offs. There have been two separate versions of The Witches, each done by a separate director who had a separate goal in mind for their story. In a potential “Dahlverse,” the second film — directed by Robert Zemeckis and released in 2020 — would have had to jump through more hoops to even be made. If everything that involves Roald Dahl has to be regulated and approved not by the Roald Dahl Story Company but instead by a larger media conglomerate like Netflix before it can be made, some of the inventiveness from directors could also be lost or some directors could be completely taken out of the running.
Still, it could be possible for Netflix to pull a feat like this off. Only the announcement of the deal going through and a few upcoming projects have been revealed to the public. For all fans know, Netflix and the Roald Dahl Story Company could have been working out a potential deal for a long time, ironing out rules and a release schedule in the vein of Disney and Marvel Comics. It will need that level of planning, though, if it wants to be anywhere as successful as the shared universes it is bound to be competing with, or if it doesn't want to end up among the other failed and scrapped universes like Universal’s Dark Universe.