With any luck, the upcoming Goosebumps movie will be packed with all kinds of various nostalgia triggers for audiences who grew up reading the books back in the 1990s, and one good sign that the project is heading in that direction is that they've just hired an actor with a good amount of nostalgia experience. Ryan Lee, who was one of the highlights of J.J. Abrams' Spielbergian-riff Super 8, has become the latest actor to join the cast of the upcoming R.L. Stine adaptation.
Variety was the first to report the news, adding that Lee will be joining a cast that includes Jack Black, Dylan Minnette and Odeya Rush. The movie will be bringing many classic from the Goosebumps series to the big screen, and is based on a script written by Darren Lemke (Jack The Giant Slayer) and Mike White (The School of Rock). Minnette will play a young guy who moves to a small town in Maryland from New York City and discovers that his neighbor is none other than R.L. Stine himself (played by Black). Problems arise when Slappy, the ventriloquist doll introduced in the book "Night of the Living Dummy," finds a way to unleash all of the demons and scary things lurking in Stine's mind. Along with Stine's niece Hannah, the kid and the author must work to try and get everything back to where it came from before the world is torn apart.
Unfortunately, the trade doesn't mention what role Ryan Lee will be playing in the film, though I could imagine him playing a neighborhood kid who gets caught up in the madness or maybe even one of the scary things that emerge from R.L. Stine's imagination. Whatever role he ends up taking, hopefully it will give him the opportunity to be funny given how well he did with that job in both Super 8 and Judd Apatow's This Is 40.
Most recently, Lee has been starring on the ABC sitcom Trophy Wife with Malin Akerman, Bradley Whitford, Marcia Gay Harden and Natalie Morales.
Director Rob Letterman is taking the helm of Goosebumps, and it will be his first movie since 2010's big flop Gulliver's Travels. While it would appear that the production is getting all of its ducks in a row now, Columbia Pictures doesn't plan to have the finished product in theaters until March 23, 2016 - almost two full years from now. Maybe the movie will shoot this year and then spend a long, long time in post-production for visual effects? We'll keep you updated as more details about this project emerge.
