Sesame Street image courtesy Netflix.

The Sesame Street neighborhood is expanding.

Netflix announced they now have the rights to a Sesame Street feature film, after engaging in a yearlong bidding war with Universal Pictures. Netflix picked up the television rights to Sesame Street after HBO Max cancelled it following a five-year stint on the streamer.

The movie will be produced by Rideback, the production company behind the live-action Lilo & Stitch and Aladdin movies. Rideback already has a working relationship with Sesame Workshop, the company behind the program, as they are collaborating on an animated project together.

Warner Bros., the parent company of HBO Max, had retained the movie rights despite having cancelled the show. Warner Bros. is in the process of being acquired by Paramount, and so took themselves out of the bidding to regain those rights.

This won’t be the first feature film starring the gang from Sesame Street; in 1985, Sesame Street: Follow that Bird starring – of course – Big Bird, who went on a cross-country adventure. Warner Bros. produced Follow that Bird, and it was directed by Ken Kwapis and written by Tony Geiss and Judy Freudberg. In 1999, Columbia Pictures/Sony released The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, directed by Gary Halvorson and written by Mitchell Kriegman and Joey Mazzarino.

Although it’s sure to star Elmo, Big Bird, Grover, Rosita, Oscar the Grouch and the rest of the popular puppets, no details about the movie have been released so far. There was a rumor that if Universal picked up the film rights, the directing team known as the Daniels would be helming the movie, but that was not confirmed.

Monday marked the launch of the official Sesame Street collection on Netflix, with more than 100 past episodes and specials from the library alongside the latest Season 56 episodes. Next month, 20 additional library episodes will be added, including Sesame Street Classics and My Sesame Street Friends: My Abby Season 2.

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