Neil Patrick Harris will star as the villainous Count Olaf in the Netflix original series, "A Series of Unfortunate Events," based on the acclaimed children's novels by Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket. Jim Carrey previously played the role in the 2004 movie.
Lemony Snicket narrates the story about three orphaned children Violet (Malina Weissman), Klaus (Louis Hynes) and Sunny Baudelaire at the hands of Count Olaf as they face trials and tribulations, misfortunes and an evil uncle in search of their fortune, all in their quest to uncover the secret of their parents' death.
The Netflix production is set to begin this month in Vancouver. Handler will serve as an executive producer on the project and Barry Sonnefeld will direct the project from Paramount TV. The streaming service picked up "Unfortunate Events" in November 2014 with a 13-episode straight-to-series order. It has not announced an official premiere date.
UPDATE: Patrick Warburton will serve as narrator Lemony Snicket.
The "Unfortunate Events" book series includes 13 novels published between 1999 and 2006. The series has sold around 60 million copies and has been printed in 41 different languages. Handler's other books include "The Basic Eight," "Watch Your Mouth," "Why We Broke Up" and "We Are Pirates" as well as "Adverbs," a collection of short stories.
Harris is also scheduled to start production this spring on the Alexander Payne film, "Downsizing." He joins an all-star cast led by Matt Damon and Reese Witherspoon and also starring Christoph Waltz, Alec Baldwin and Hong Chau. The sci-fi movie is about an Omaha man who joins the throngs of people undergoing a new process that reduces people to a tiny fraction of their size, allowing them to live in one of the many miniature communities that are sprouting up around the world.
The 42-year-old actor most recently hosted the short-lived NBC variety series "Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris." He also starred in two episodes of "American Horror Story: Freak Show" last year and the 2014 movie, "Gone Girl." He also took time to star in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" on Broadway in 2014.
"Unfortunate Events" will be Harris' first series regular role since he starred for nine seasons on CBS's "How I Met Your Mother."
