Disney+ orders a new live-action Goosebumps series

“Viewer beware, you’re in for a scare!” For the first time since 1998, R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps stories are heading back to television. Variety is reporting that Disney+ has officially given a series order to a revival of Goosebumps. The first season will consist of 10 episodes.

Stine’s first Goosebumps novels were published in 1992 as horror stories for children. The books were so popular with kids that Goosebumps was adapted into a TV series in 1995 that ran on Fox Kids for four seasons. The original series also loosely adapted many of Stine’s stories, and introduced viewers to some of the books’ recurring adversaries, including an evil dummy named Slappy (pictured below).

The new series is taking a different approach to Stine’s stories. Instead of utilizing the anthology format, the show will follow five high school students who accidentally unleash supernatural creatures and powers on their hometown. Despite their differences, the teens must band together to save themselves and the entire town. They also discover that their parents’ secrets may also have a link to the unfolding threat.

Slappy in Goosebumps. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Nick Stoller and Rob Letterman are writing and producing the Goosebumps TV series, which is appropriate because both of them played big roles in bringing Goosebumps to theaters in 2015 and 2018. Stoller produced both films, while Letterman directed the first Goosebumps movie starring Jack Black as a fictionalized version of R.L. Stine. Letterman is also slated to direct the first episode of the new Goosebumps series.

Presumably, many of the classic Goosebumps characters will make an appearance on the show. For example, it just wouldn’t be Goosebumps without Slappy, an evil dummy who comes to life when an enchantment is read out loud. He appeared in multiple episodes of the first TV series, and in both movies.

Disney+ previously worked with Stine to adapt his Just Beyond graphic novels into a live-action series in 2021. However, Goosebumps is still the gold standard for Stine’s franchises. A start date for the new Goosebumps has not been announced.

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