The big screen version of RL Stine’s classic Goosebumps series was a slightly unexpected but most definite joy, so we’re pleased to hear that a sequel is officially in the works.
THR reports that Sony is making deals with director Rob Letterman and writer Darren Lemke to come back for Goosebumps 2. It was a moderate, if not spectacular, hit, but it’s popular enough to warrant a second go.
But what about Jack Black? The report says that “the goal is to have him return for the sequel.” It certainly looked like he was having a lot of fun playing the legendary Stine, and it was a lot of fun watching him, so fingers crossed for his return.
One challenge will be: which story to tell? The film decided to avoid sticking to any one book by making Stine a character and unleashing his creations on a small town, forcing him and a plucky trio of teens to try to get them back into the pages of the books. Presumably a sequel would pick up where the first film left off, but how much bigger can you go? Well, that’s probably up to Slappy.
The first film also starred Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Ryan Lee, Jillian Bell, Keith Arthur Bolden, Amanda Lund, Timothy Simons, Ken Marino, and the peerless Amy Ryan. At this point, we would like to formally request more screen time for Marino and Ryan, should they return.
“Upset about moving from a big city to a small town, teenager Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) finds a silver lining when he meets the beautiful girl, Hannah (Odeya Rush), living right next door. But every silver lining has a cloud, and Zach’s comes when he learns that Hannah has a mysterious dad who is revealed to be R. L. Stine (Jack Black), the author of the bestselling Goosebumps series. It turns out that there is a reason why Stine is so strange… he is a prisoner of his own imagination – the monsters that his books made famous are real, and Stine protects his readers by keeping them locked up in their books. When Zach unintentionally unleashes the monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town, it’s suddenly up to Stine, Zach, Hannah, and Zach’s friend Champ (Ryan Lee) to get all of them back in the books where they belong.”
Goosebumps will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on 30 May. Keep up with the latest genre news with the new issue of SciFiNow.
