A television adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles was first announced in November 2021 for Disney+, developed as a co-production between Paramount Television Studios and 20th Television, with Aron Eli Coleite serving as writer and showrunner.

Original book authors Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black served as executive producers and worked with showrunner Aron Eli Coleite to reshape the story, giving the villain Mulgarath a much larger role by having him secretly pose as Jared's therapist to manipulate the Grace family.

Instead of following the novels' original plot of protecting Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide from Mulgarath, which the producers felt was tiresome, they redesigned the season around a quest to recover the book's missing pages across eight episodes.

The producers replaced Mulgarath's goblin henchmen from the books with an original character named Calliope, created as a go-between who could interact with both Mulgarath and the human characters; Holly Black based Calliope on Fetches, supernatural doubles associated with death in Irish folklore.

Principal photography began on September 12, 2022, in Vancouver, Canada, and was scheduled to wrap on January 27, 2023.

The show was originally set to air on Disney+ with six episodes, but in August 2023 it was dropped from the platform for cost-cutting reasons despite already being completed; Roku later acquired the U.S. exclusive rights in October 2023 and released it as eight episodes.

By late April 2024, Roku reported that The Spiderwick Chronicles was the most-watched title in the platform's history, claiming millions of viewers during its opening weekend, though exact figures were not disclosed.

Critics praised Christian Slater's performance as Mulgarath and the series' visual effects, but several reviewers criticized the show for downplaying the fantasy and adventure elements of the source material in favor of contemporary themes like teenage mental health, which some attributed to budgetary restrictions.