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'Gulliver's Travels' & 'Monsters vs Aliens' Director Getting 'Goosebumps'

by Ethan Anderton
March 19, 2013

It's been about two and a half years since we heard anything about Columbia Pictures' adaptation of R.L. Stine's young adult horror novel series Goosebumps. Back in the fall of 2010, Disturbia and Red Dawn remake screenwriter Carl Ellsworth was slated to write the script for a live-action film, but since then we haven't heard any solid updates. Now news comes from Deadline that Gulliver's Travels and Monsters vs. Aliens director Rob Letterman is currently in talks to direct the film which is being produced by Neal H. Moritz in conjunction with Scholastic Entertainment. But just which of the stories will go to the big screen?

Unfortunately, at this point it's not clear how Goosebumps will be handled. There were a total of 62 books in the original Goosebumps series, not including the choose-your-own-adventure and other offshoots trying to capitalize on the popular name, so there's a lot of source material. Of course, nowadays studios just like to have an established name and craft an original story, so that could happen here. For my money, I think the best option would be a collection of a few intertwining stories in a sort of anthology not unlike Twilight Zone: The Movie. But there are plenty of stories that lend themselves to a feature length film.

However, the hiring of Letterman isn't exactly thrilling. Sure, the guy knows what he's doing with big set pieces and special effects, but Monsters vs. Aliens, Gulliver's Travels and Shark Tale just didn't deliver on quality as much as spectacle. There were traces of great ideas and a decent story, but they got lost in favor of some silly gags and humor that didn't always land. Maybe this will be different, but the Goosebumps name does create certain expectations. After all, there are plenty of kids of the 90s who tune in to watch the TV series around Halloween when it airs on Cartoon Network. What do you think?

Filed under Development, Movie News

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Happy camper

Lets Get Invisible!
http://twitter.com/Link1709 Jon Chamberlain

I would love to see something similar to creep house where you have 3 or 4 stories over the course of 2 hours.
Jay

Loved those books, when I was a kid.
Barbara Ruiz

I'm an adult and I still watch goosebumps on the hub, it's still creepy to me at times like the ventriloquist doll, the Halloween mask the wouldn't come off...then there are some cheesy ones like the killer potato but as a kid they all pretty much scared me. I can't say I'm excited about this. shark tale was good, monsters vs aliens was good but it didn't really have much to live up to, they were pretty original. This is different, it's got a fan base with the series and the books. I'm just worried about how much humor they'll inject, and how 'shiny' they'll make the presentation. I'm not really looking for anything gore-like but I'd honestly prefer the people who made trick-or-treat. I'd probably still watch it though which is probably all anyone actually cares about
Jayrod

http://www.supraliminalfilms.com/2012/12/31/poor-mans-process-episode-12-goose-bump-in-the-night/ Here is a 45 minute pod-cast on 4 of the original goosebumps books made as a low budget anthology.