In a case of striking while the iron is hot, Columbia Pictures is planning on making a movie based on the “Goosebumps” series of books. Come to think of it, that is actually the opposite of hot iron striking. The children’s horror books, written by R.L. Stine, were the most popular books in America, of any genre, in the mid 1990’s and have sold 300 million copies worldwide. Unfortunately, as our caldendar’s note, we left the 1990’s some time ago.
Variety reports that book publisher, Scholastic, and the filmmakers view “Goosebumps” as a potential franchise. With more than 50 books to choose from, the series could go on forever. Most likely it will go on for one movie and then never be heard from again. This is what is called “Series of Unfortunate Events Syndrome;” where a super popular book tries to make the jump to the big screen and turns out kinda eh.
There is no reason a popular book series from the past can’t be made into a good movie (see Narnia, Chronicles of), but this just seems like really odd timing. This was a huge phenomenon last decade, but you don’t hear anything about the series these days, although Stine is writing a sequel series right now, which is probably why Scholastic is looking to make the movie now. A good scary movie for kids would be a nice change from the torture porn we usually get. So keep one eye open for this.
