I was indeed a young-ish person in the 90s – although I hasten to add that my teenage years were spent in the 00s. But like every 90s kid, I owned far too copies of R.L. Stine’s ridiculously popular Goosebumps series. Stine was basically the Stephen King of the pre-pubescent set. So it is with both excitement and a teeny bit of trepidation that I discover that Stine’s Goosebumps is all set to come to the big screen, with director Rob Letterman set to helm.
Letterman certainly has family-friendly cred. He’s the director behind both Gulliver’s Travels and the much more enjoyable Monsters vs. Aliens. He seems like a good choice to bring the scary (but not really scary) Goosebumps tales to the big screen.
No word has yet been received on how Sony Pictures plans to go about adapting Stine. The man has written over 160 books, most of which follow the same bizarre formula that includes things that should not come alive coming alive, and a somewhat random twist ending: He’s actually dead! He’s actually the zombie! And so forth. Right now the film is not being labeled as an adaptation of any single book so it will be interesting to see how they handle the script.
I do not know how I feel about this news. On the one hand, I have an abiding nostalgic affection for Goosebumps as my first introduction to the horror literary world. On the other hand, the books are almost excessively predictable and formulaic, and the writing … well, Stine is not exactly Mary Shelley, now is he? I’m not certain who a Goosebumps film will appeal to, except for 90s kids wanting to relive our childhood literary traumas. Does anyone even read Goosebumps any more?
What do you think of the prospect of a Goosebumps movie? Is Letterman the right man for the job? And how should they go about adapting the books? Let us know in the comments.
