Author R.L. Stine is the man behind the classic young adult-based horror series Goosebumps and Fear Street, and lately has seen the former adapted into a film franchise with enough success to warrant a sequel. The first film, released in 2015, starred Jack Black and received positive reviews while going on to make $150.2 million at the box office.
A sequel, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, sans Black, was released last month and grossed $91 million worldwide from a $35 million budget. Although these aren’t staggering numbers, they’re solid and efficient, and it is likely what has made studios interested in adapting the other majorly popular work of Stine, Fear Street.
However, it was over a year and a half ago that we last heard about the adaptations. Back then, Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) had been hired to write and direct of the book series, and at the time, the plan was for her to pen three different scripts that could be shot back-to-back, and released in a similar fashion, just a month apart from each other.
The unusual plan was described as “binge-ing movies” and would have been a fascinating strategy to observe. But since then, there has been no news whatsoever, but Stine himself has confirmed on Twitter that three Fear Street movies are still being developed at Fox:
Every day, people ask me if there will ever be movies based on the Fear Street books. The answer is yes. THREE Fear Street movies are in the works at Fox. While you wait, you might try the newest book… pic.twitter.com/qzoPN9RLZE
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) November 15, 2018
There’s no word on whether Janiak is still attached, but hopefully she is as Honeymoon was inventive and her episode of the Scream TV series was acclaimed. She was also set at one point to reportedly helm a remake of The Craft, which would be a great fit for her, but there hasn’t been any news on that for a while either.
We’ll hope for some more concrete news regarding Fear Street, as it’s never a good sign when an in-development project has no new information reported for a while. Hopefully, the films do not succumb to development hell. With the new Goosebumps film still fresh in the mind, hopefully that will move Fear Street along more swiftly.
#Peace.Love.FearStreet
