goosebumps

The new ‘Goosebumps’ is being developed by Scholastic, Neal H. Moritz, and Sony.

It may be hard to believe now, but there was once a time when studios would wait until a release had proven itself at the box-office before investing in a massive franchise around it. But the likes of DC, Marvel, and the future firee at Universal who came up with the Dark Universe boondoggle have now set a standard of placing the cart before the horse, and other studios cannot help but follow suit. Fox is the latest showbiz entity to go all-in on an untested concept, banking that the respectable profits generated by that Goosebumps movie from 2015 that you’ve already forgotten about shall be a bellwether for future riches.

The success of Hotel Transylvania 2 proved that family-friendly horror-themed movies stand to make a whole bunch of cash when released in the vicinity of Halloween. Now, Goosebumps is here to ensure that we’ll be getting slightly scary kids’ movies every October for the foreseeable future. The adaptation of the popular book series opened at number one, riding a wave of nostalgia and family appeal to a very strong start, beating out some pretty serious competition.

The monsters have broken free from their books, and Jack Black has to force them back inside.