Because schooling from home isn't scary enough, a live-action Goosebumps TV series is in the works
Aux Features Goosebumps
Hey all you gouly ghosts and goblins, get ready for some PG-rated scares: Deadline reports that a live-action TV series based on R.L. Stine’s bestselling Goosebumps books is in the works. It will be produced in part by the team that brought you the two Jack Black Goosebump movies, so take that for what it means to you.
“Goosebumps has been keeping kids and families on the edge of
their seats for nearly 30 years and we’re very excited to partner with
Sony Pictures Television and Neal H. Moritz to bring the enduring brand
to life in a fresh new way for today’s generation,” Iole Lucchese.,
Scholastic entertainment president and chief strategy officer tells Deadline. The original Goosebumps book series ran from 1992 to 1997 and consisted of 22 titles. (Shameless plug: Read Ryan Vlastelica’s Memory Wipe on the series.) And Stein, now 76, last released a book under the Goosebump umbrella in 2016. And this, of course, will not the first time Goosebumps has come to TV: A live-action series based on the books aired for five seasons on Fox Kids beginning in 1995.
There’s no word on where this new series will land (possibly Netflix, since the entire original series is now available on the streaming service) but grown-up fans of the books are hopeful that this new iteration won’t be as kiddy as the previous series. That hope stems from Mortiz’s statement to Deadline, in which he expressed a desire that this new iteration be “a high-end
television series that speaks to both adults and kids alike.”
Really, we’re just looking for Slappy to get the Annabelle treatment. Until we get that, enjoy the fact that someone took the time to create this bizarre treasure:
4 Comments
The original books were pretty crappy though, most of the time not scary. I think the funnest aspect of Goosebumps is the blog reviewing each book. The pilot movie with the mask did have some decent scares for a kids horror.I will say that the books at least had something that could be loosely adapted to a decent story. But to remain true to those books, there must be a red-headed child with freckles in each episode.
The one Goosebumps book I read that was frightening, if only on an existential level, was one that had a grandfather clock that would turn time backwards if you turned a dial with the years written on it, but it was missing one year. The protagonist is a kid whose little sister makes his life hell. When time starts going backwards, he de-ages about a year each day and has to stop the clock before he ages down before his own birth and disappears. He finally does, and time starts moving normally again, but the year that was missing on the dial was the one where his sister was born, so she’s effectively erased from existence. It’s implied that the protagonist is not intending to do anything to correct this.
The book about the boy who could fly is actually a decent story, but not written to be scary. More like Twilight Zone, where not all of them are “scary”, but interesting. I think the Cuckoo Clock story fits there. It was adapted into a Goosebumps episode that was fine for Saturday morning.I forgot to mention, the Goosebumps theme music was good, the opening credits was probably creepier than anything in the episode.
The original TV series ran for five seasons? I assumed it was just a one and done.