Amazon to produce live-action American Girl specials

The content-creation brain trust at Amazon has a new one for you: American Girl, the doll, but a live-action special, and four of them.

The pact calls for four live-action specials and includes the option to produce multiple seasons of episodic content based on the brand’s characters. Two specials will feature characters from the BeForever franchise and one will feature characters from Girl of the Year franchise.

Barbie recently got a makeover; now another of Mattel’s franchises is getting television specials.

Pictured: American Girl’s 2016 Girl of the Year doll, Lea Clark.

“American Girl resonates strongly with kids and parents alike through its message of self-confidence, adventure, exploration and learning”, said Tara Sorensen, Head of Kids Programming, Amazon Studios.

The move, part of a “multi-year, multimillion dollar” deal, is geared to strengthening the kid show line-up of Amazon Video, a video-streaming perk of Amazon Prime. Since 2004, the company has produced a series of direct-to-video movies with the notable exception of 2008’s Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, which starred Abigail Breslin in the title role and was released theatrically.

For Amazon, the American Girl deal will expand its allure to families with young kids, as rival Netflix has also been steadily ramping up its original content for children of all ages. For a list of all Amazon Video compatible devices visit www.amazon.com/howtostream. The specials will join Amazon’s award-winning original kids programming slate. Customers who are not already Prime members can sign up for a free trial at www.amazon.com/primevideo.

Launched originally in 1986, the firm behind the American Girl dolls – Pleasant Company – was acquired by Mattel in 1998, and the brand has gone from strength to strength with retail stores selling dolls, clothes, and accessories. (Nasdaq: MAT, www.mattel.com), the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of toys and family products. That line later received its own spinoff, the Girl of the Year series. Theres no word just yet of what the fourth special will entail.