As part of Hollywood’s continuing plan to film everything ever written, it was announced today that Sony Pictures (Columbia) has obtained the rights from Scholastic to make a film- or possibly films- based on the Goosebumps franchise. Scholastic’s most famous franchise before a certain wizard came along, the series was known for its supposedly scary tales and often-comedic twist endings. Deborah Forte, president of Scholastic, is co-producing with Neal Moritz (The Fast and the Furious) through his Original Films.
Although originally somewhat dormant since its end in 1997, kid interest in the Goosebumps franchise lifted after reruns of the (non-animated) Fox Saturday-morning series inspired by the books came to Cartoon Network. Stine is now returning to the craft, writing a 12-volume miniseries, “Goosebumps Horrorland,” inspired by some of the most famous characters and events of the series all meeting up at the haunted theme park. For those of you who want to remember the original books, laugh, or both, I suggest the very funny Blogger Beware, commenting on Stine’s books and his apparent obsession with scientist dads, platonic boy-girl relationships, and werewolves. Always with the werewolves.
I agree that it should be Fear Street. Especially the 3 Fear Street Saga books. They were superior books. Especially since Goosebumps just took a bunch of common horror stories and urban legends, and then rewrote them with “tween” or “teen” protagonists.
I loved the Fear Street books when I was younger. I think I had like 30 of them on my bookshelf, some of which were genuinely creepy & disturbing. *Goosebumps *I don’t remember that much. I think that was aimed towards a younger group.
How strange, I was just talking about this series with my friend yesterday.
I used to devour these books in the fourth and fifth grade. Especially for the Accelerated Reader program (You took mini-tests on the book afterwards and were awarded points that you could cash in for prizes). I moved onto Fear Street pretty quickly.
My infatuation ended in the middle of junior high, once I figured out that all his books were pretty much the same. I found it interesting that he almost always wrote from the female perspective, maybe it’s because girls can be more emotional, jealous, and bitchy during their teenage years and made it easier to use as a main character and/or villan.
I remember the Goosebumps television show, but it wasn’t scary at all. At least there was some fear potential in Fear Street. I don’t see how they could turn the Goosebumps books into a lucrative movie.
I never understood why they didn’t turn the books into a series for older teens. Sure they’re pretty violent and occasionally sexual (and horribly written – I tried to re-read one a few years ago and just couldn’t), but no worse than what’s currently on TV.
3rd grade was all about Goosebumps, man. Fear Street was cooler though. I gave all my Goosebumps away, I had probably 30 of them, and a bunch of Fear Street too.
I never went back and re-read them when I was older, but I did re-read a Babysitters Club book during a garage sale last summer…oh god so horrible. Badly written. Some kids books just don’t hold up.
Fear Street would make a better scary movie - and if they actually wrote a good screenplay it could be a decent horror movie maybe. I watched some Goosebumps reruns on Halloween - not scary, just retarded. Like the green goo that kept growing? The kid that turned into a werewolf? The stories were too ridiculous and far-fetched to be scary if you’re over 8 years old. And how many 8 year olds go to horror movies?
I always read Goosebumps as a kid…I was never scared, just bemused I suppose. Half of why I read them was just to see what the ending was. The question is, will the Goosebumps movie be a longer retelling of one of the books, or an original plot? If so, I might get sucked into seeing it just for the ridiculous ending that has to be there.
Of course, this is all contingent on whether or not the movie production value is high. I couldn’t sit through a full movie of the crappy quality of the TV show.
Damn, I gotta go and drag out my old Fear Street and other Stine books now. I used to go through those books like water. That and Christopher Pike-anyone remember him?
Oh yes! I had a whole bunch of his too. And Joan Lowery Nixon as well. I remember I used to go to the library every week and come home with armfuls of those books.
Fittingly for this thread … a seven-year-old zombie is resurrected
Seriously, though – I figured for sure there would be a thread for the Goosebumps movie released last Friday. My nine-year-old son discovered the '90s TV series, and then the '90s books, over the last few months. He was stoked to see the movie, and it did not disappoint - our entire family had a great time seeing it.
Wow, Goosebumps is still a thing? I know they used to be quite popular, as kid books go (and anything that gets more kids reading is fine by me), but I haven’t seen much of them in the past decade or so.
The Goosebumps TV series has been revived twice (at least) since it’s original run in the late '90s … and these revivals have lead to more interest in both the original book series and in latter-day offerings from Stine.
My son discovered The Goosebumps series on Netflix a few months ago. His teacher has a collection of Goosebumps books in the classroom, so he checked those out looking for the episodes he had seen (which are directly based on the books). Then he saw a Goosebumps book display at Barnes and Noble shortly afterward. Hasn’t looked back.
