Disney+ Nabs Live-Action Series of Nostalgic Horror Books

Disney+ has launched a handful of big franchise reboots and revivals, and now Goosebumps is the latest one to land at the streamer. The revival was first revealed in April 2020, and now Variety reports that the new series will consist of 10 live-action episodes. No casting announcements have been made at this time, but Nick Stoller and Rob Letterman will serve as writers and executive producers on the series.

According to Variety, the new Goosebumps series “follows a group of five high schoolers who unleash supernatural forces upon their town and must all work together – thanks to and in spite of their friendships, rivalries, and pasts with each other – in order to save it, learning much about their own parents’ teenage secrets in the process.” The original Goosebumps TV series was based on the horror book series of the same name, by author R.L. Stine. The anthology series debuted in 1995 and ran for four seasons, ending in 1998. Two decades after the series launched, a Goosebumps movie was released, starring Jack Black and Dylan Minnette. Then, in 2018, a standalone sequel premiered, titled Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween. 

News of the Goosebumps revival comes after another one of Stein’s book series, Fear Street, was adapted into a film trilogy. The debuted on Netflix in July 2021, and was directed by Leigh Janiak, from stories and screenplays she wrote with Phil Graziadei, Kyle Killen, Kate Trefry, and Zak Olkewicz. The films were subtitled 1994, 1978 and 1666, respectively, and were released over the course of three weeks.

In June, ahead of the release of Fear Street, Stine sat down with GQ to discuss the film trilogy, as well as his career, and he offered some thoughts on why Goosebumps has had such longevity. “We’re on thirty years of Goosebumps. Just to brag, I’m the number #2 series author in history. JK Rowling is first, and I’m second,” the author quipped.

Stine continued, “To be honest, I have no idea why they got so popular. Why are they still buying this stuff? I couldn’t tell you! I’ve written 150 . And the funny thing is I wasn’t even sure about writing them.” He then added, “Fear Street was first. Those books were doing very well. And then my editors convinced me to do a series for younger readers. They had to push me into it. I said ‘Well, I guess we can try two or three.’”