Since 1992, R.L. Stine has been freaking out kids on the page through his Goosebumps and Fear Street books. In recent years, both have been adapted, with a new Goosebumps show on Disney+ and Fear Street’s movie trilogy on Netflix.
Stine recently talked with the Hollywood Reporter about both projects, particularly Goosebumps. Those original books were aimed at kids age 7-11, which he considers the ideal audience since that’s “the last time in their eyes they’ll ever be enthusiastic.” The kids in those stories were tweens, but the show features a high school cast, which he admitted caught him off guard at first. Once he adjusted to that, he found the new show scarier than its 90s predecessor and the more recent movies.
The next Goosebumps season, starting December 10, stars David Schwimmer and a new cast of kids. Stine got to see its first two episodes and hyped up the season as “terrifying,” and said it keeps true to the spirit of the books. As an example, he said the new season features someone dying, which he typically avoids in Goosebumps stories. To him, that death in the show doesn’t break the series’ rules, since it’s established in a flashback—if anything, he thinks that trick “elevates” the franchise, in a way.
If you really wanna see death in Stine stories, you can find that in Fear Street. He noted that unlike Goosebumps, that series “kills off teenagers left and right,” and “everyone loves when you kill teens.” Last year, Stine said a fourth movie based on the Prom Queen book was in the works, which is said to be directed by Watcher’s Chloe Okuno. It sounds that movie will be followed by two more films, as he told THR “the writers are working. I’ve got my fingers crossed.” Netflix hasn’t revealed anything about it yet, but it’s reportedly arriving sometime in 2025.
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