Widely beloved man with a hat Terry Pratchett has announced the formation of his own fledgling multimedia empire, operating under the name Narrativia. Named for Pratchett’s self-invented goddess of narrative, the Soho-based company will assume responsibility for all things Discworld and beyond in formats other than books, which in the immediate future appears to include assorted TV and film projects: Pratchett himself talks of ‘working closely with the team to develop new stories in areas other than just print and e-books and, of course, seeing my first big screen project come to fruition.’

Pratchett has, of course, long balanced his immensely popular writing with a positively Simpsons-esque approach to merchandise, even seeing a brick and mortar shop spring up dedicated solely to punting his officially licensed wares, from napkins to board games and pet giant turtles carrying baby elephants on their backs (okay, maybe not that last one, but look Tel, if you don’t, I will).

The Discworld novels have themselves seen many and varied treatments over the years, from a couple of frustratingly difficult but beautifully put together point and click video games in the mid-90s to animated adaptations of Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music for Channel Four around the same time, neither of which really caught on with an audience beyond fans of the novels in the same way as Sky One’s mini-series adaptations of Hogfather, The Colour of Magic and Going Postal, which have been broadcast sporadically but to great acclaim since 2006. A further instalment in that series – Unseen Academicals – is reputedly premiering next year.

Narrativia has yet to reveal any kind of slate of its own productions, but sci-fi and fantasy magazine SFX points out that the company’s MD, Rod Brown, has been working with Pratchett on an adaptation of The Watch, which certainly seems to tip the fedora, as it were.