Teen detectives Joe and Frank Hardy are back — and coming to Hulu in 2020.
Shot in Greater Toronto by Canadian companies Nelvana and Lambur Productions, “The Hardy Boys” will be slated as a 13-episode series. Jason Stone (“At First Light,” “Tender as Hellfire”) will direct.
The show will also air in YTV in Canada.
The series begins as the boys move to the small town of Bridgeport, following their mother’s death. Their famous detective father, Fenton Hardy, believes her death wasn’t an accident. So his intrepid sons decide to solve the crime.
Edward Stratemeyer’s mystery series began in 1927 and has remained popular to this day. The Hardy Boys’ adventures have been translated into more than 25 languages. Its long-term appeal: They solved cases that stumped adults.
There have been various TV incarnations of the duo. “The Hardy Boys” was a short-lived ABC series in 1969; “The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries” ran from 1977-’79; and later, a syndicated “Hardy Boys” series aired in 1995. (Stratemeyer was the original author of “Nancy Drew.”)
The Hardy Boys also appeared in video games and branded merchandise.
The YA-teen genre is popular, thanks in part, to hits like The CW’s “Riverdale” and Netflix’s “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.”
“While we’re excited to bring a fresh new take on ‘The Hardy Boys,’ we also wanted to evoke a sense of nostalgia. The series remains true to the quintessential Hardy Boys themes of brotherly love, friendship, and of course, mystery solving,” said Joan Lambur, the executive producer and president at Lambur Productions.
Nelvana is best known as a producer of children’s animated shows, including “Babar” “Max & Ruby,” “The Berenstain Bears” and “Trucktown.”