Dylan Minnette Will Lead Goosebumps

Minnette’s character, named Zach Cooper, moves with his family from New York to Greendale, Maryland, where he learns that one of his neighbors is reclusive author R.L. Stine (Black). Becoming friendly with Stine’s niece Hannah (Rush), Zach soon finds himself in over his head when an evil ventriloquist dummy named Slappy unleashes some of Stine’s scariest creations on the neighborhood.

I’m really not happy to see that Goosebumps has ended up in the hands of Black and Letterman, the same team who brought us Gulliver’s Travels, a horrific, insulting train-wreck of an adaptation. Hopefully the script, by Darren Lemke and Mike White, won’t do away with the creepy thrills that made Stine’s series so beloved. Luckily, neither of them have bad track records; Lemke wrote Jack the Giant Slayer, a more-than-serviceable fairy-tale adventure, while White previously penned School of Rock and episodes of Enlightened. However, Goosebumps will certainly be a tricky screenplay to write, so I can only hope that they’re up to the challenge. I mean, at least it’s got to be better than Inkheart. Right?

The verdict’s still out on when we’ll be seeing this adaptation of Goosebumps, but filming’s due to get underway soon. Minnette recently wrapped a major role in children’s book adaptation Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and his schedule’s wide open, but Rush has the lead role in Biblical epic Mary, also due to film soon, so it’s currently unclear how quickly Goosebumps will get off the ground.

As always, we’ll bring you more on this project as details emerge.

Do you approve of Minnette’s casting? What about this adaptation as a whole; are you getting Goosebumps in anticipation, or has recent news about the film left you cold?