Neil Patrick Harris will star as Uncle Olaf in the Netflix adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. He added – with an obvious nod to his child-acting roots – that it’s “spending all day with those three terrible child actors that will be a challenge”. The epic series will be executive produced by Barry Sonnenfeld, who will also direct a number of episodes, and Daniel Handler, legal, literary and social representative for Lemony Snicket. If you’re looking for reasons to have faith in Harris as the new Count Olaf, the latter might be a good place to start – his performance is subdued but skin-crawlingly creepy.
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Jim Carrey played the over-the-top part in the 2004 film adaptation, directed by Brad Silberling.
“The Simpsons” co-creator Matt Groening is in talks with Netflix to partner on a new animated comedy series, according to Deadline. His other recent projects include Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West and David Fincher’s Gone Girl.
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Neil Patrick Harris emerged on the Hollywood scene as a child star opposite Whoopi Goldberg in the Mark Medoff film Clara’s Heart. Harris’ most notable role as a young actor, however, was for his role as a genius teenage physician in Doogie Howser M.D. Now Harris would play him. Netflix picked up the show in November 2014 with a straight to series order of 13 episodes. Netflix had originally stated that former True Blood producer Mark Hudis would be at the helm for the series, however, insiders have reported Hudis has stepped down as the showrunner. He has garnered multiple Emmy and Golden Globe award nominations for his role as “Barney Stinson” on the hit television series, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, and he won an Emmy for his guest-starring role on GLEE in 2010.
