R.L. Stine's Goosebumps was a children's book series that offered horror and macabre humor to massive success. Now the children's author who brought us titles like Stay Out of The Basement, Night of the Living Dummy and The Haunted Mask is getting a movie makeover of his own, courtesy of Jack Black, who plays R.L. Stine in the upcoming Goosebumps movie.
Our first official look at Goosebumps comes courtesy of EW (via Bloody Disgusting), who sat down with Jack Black to get some details on the intriguing adaptation. As you can see in the pic up top, Black's take on R.L. Stine is that of a dapper man who apparently can keep his cool while surrounded by monsters. But Stine is not immune to panic as is clear in the second shot, which features Black wedged in a gate while co-stars Odeya Rush and Dylan Minnette look on.
Goosebumps will center Stine's quest to return the creatures from his books to their pages after they've been unleashed on his small town, where they run amok. Helping him in his adventure are his daughter Hannah (Odeya Rush) and next door neighbor Zach (Dylan Minnette). Together they must save the day (or night it seems).
Reuniting with Black for Goosebumps is Gulliver's Travels director Rob Letterman, whose involvement first drew the comedian to the project. Speaking about his character in Goosebumps, Black offers:
"I play R.L. Stine, who’s not in any of the books, but he’s an essential character in this movie, which is all about when all of his characters come to life. It was kind of a great way to bring out all of the scary beasts and monsters from all of his books in one movie… this is obviously a fictionalized version of his life and nothing that happens in this movie actually happened to him, other than him writing all the books. So I felt like, I was just going to approach it as a character, doing what I thought was most dramatically interesting and right for what was needed…I made [the character] more of a sort of curmudgeonly dark, brooding beast master. So from the very beginning, I was taking liberties. I think (the real Stine)’s cool with it though. "
Black had the chance to meet R.L. Stine himself, and sweetened the pot for Goosebumps fans by admitting the real Stine will make an appearance in the movie. Black explains:
"He’s been on set and he actually did a little cameo. He saw what I was doing and he was digging it. Or at least he pretended like he was digging it."
As to how frightening Goosebumps will be, Black says it'll be scary in the way kids like, and no "Satan comes out and bites your genitals off" kind of terror. "Kids still like to get a little thrill and a little danger," Black explains, "So you need projects like this."
Goosebumps not only holds a special place in the hearts of children of the 1990s, but also could appeal to a whole new generation with this movie. With all these details dropping before Comic Con, could Black be paving the way to a special SDCC teaser? We'll keep you posted.
To see how Black's Stine look compares to the real R.L. Stine, click to the next page.
