Columbia to give us GOOSEBUMPS!

By Matt Holmes / August 18, 2008

I went through a phase in my first real introduction to reading where I devoured every Goosebumps book I could find and although R.L. Stine was quick to write more - often he couldn't keep up with my hunger and quick pace for needing more stories. That eventually led me elsewhere to much bigger and better things but for a good number of years, Goosebumps were my number 1 form of entertainment. I still have many of them lying around somewhere. My favourites were Night of the Living Dummy (an obvious adaptation of a great Twilight Zone episode starring Cliff Robertson), Attack of the Mutants (a superhero yarn which could make a great movie actually), Welcome to Horrorland (which was awesome) and a story about a scarecrow whose name alludes me right now. Each novel was like a mixture between a Stephen King book and as I've said The Twilight Zone - where twist endings were common and not only was a bad ending possible, sometimes it was inevitable. They were great moral stories for kids - and pretty scary too when your 8-11. And a great way to be introduced to horror!

The news today from Variety is that Colombia have bought the rights to the whole series from it's author R.L. Stine and for the first time his $300 million sellers will be coming to the big screen - only Harry Potter can claim more sales in children's books. Although you have to remember there is about a gazillion books in the Goosebumps series so each individual book doesn't necessarily need to sell millions. Scholastic's Deborah Forte is producing alongside Neal Moritz via his Sony-based Original Film banner. Studio are now fast-tracking the project and are on the hunt out for a writer. The plan is to go with unknown child actors for the main parts and then flesh out the features with some well known actors. It's not yet known if the books will follow a pattern and the same core group of characters from film to film. Fans of the books (like me) will remember the live action t.v. show that aired on Fox Kids in the 90's... some of which were pretty darn terrible if I'm honest. Bigger production values and bigger scope should lead to better things. Damn, I'm excited.