Disney’s Goosebumps Reboot Promises A Modern Update

While Disney’s upcoming Goosebumps reboot will change up the franchise’s formula, a new image shows how the series is being updated for modern audiences. Goosebumps has seen many adaptations since RL Stine’s iconic series of children’s horror novels first became bestsellers in the early ‘90s. The Goosebumps books were first brought to life on-screen in a classic TV adaptation that offered a condensed version of each book’s story as each episode’s plot. A few decades later, 2015’s Goosebumps and its 2019 sequel, Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween, gave a meta-spin on this premise as teens accidentally unleashed Stine’s creations on their small hometowns.

Since then, the franchise has remained dormant. However, Disney’s upcoming Goosebumps TV series will once again see the stories return to screens in October 2023. Developed by Nicholas Stoller and Rob Letterman, who directed 2015’s Goosebumps live-action movie, this Goosebumps show seems like it will blend the approaches taken by the franchise’s two earlier screen adaptations. Like the original TV show, Disney’s Goosebumps reboot will adapt numerous novels from the series and, like the meta live-action movies, the show will playfully combine various Stine creations to make a new, original narrative with plenty of meta-humor and comedic relief. Not only that, but the series also has a great new approach.

Disney’s Goosebumps Reboot Promises Multigenerational Mayhem

Unlike earlier adaptations, Disney’s Goosebumps reboot has a secret weapon up its sleeve. An exclusive image from the reboot proves the show’s multigenerational cast can pull off a horror revival first, as the younger heroes of the series will be targeted by supernatural forces because of a secret their parents covered up decades earlier. Netflix’s R.L. Stine adaptation the Fear Street trilogy, which was based on a novel series for older readers, offered a multi-generational story of small-town teens discovering that their parents hid the tragic past of their hometown from them for years. Now, Disney’s Goosebumps seems set to do the same as the show brings two generations of characters together.

However, Disney’s Goosebumps reboot has the potential to make this story even more effective than Fear Street’s critically acclaimed trilogy thanks to the meta-elements of the plot. Unlike the earlier live-action movie adaptations, the show is making use of the fact that there are two generations of Goosebumps fans: contemporary kids and young readers from the ‘90s, many of whom are now parents themselves. Since Fear Street had no earlier screen adaptation, the trilogy had no nostalgia factor. In contrast, Disney’s Goosebumps reboot can appeal to fans of new horror shows, fans of the original ‘90s series, and fans of the classic horrors that inspired Goosebumps alike at the same time.

Why Disney’s Goosebumps Reboot Is Exciting

Disney’s Goosebumps reboot looks exciting because few horror revivals have contended with the fact that their original fans are now approaching middle age. Goosebumps can mine some self-aware comedy and even some pathos from the fact that ‘90s kids are now old enough to have kids of their own, and can reckon with the cultural impact that the Goosebumps franchise has had in the decades since it began. Tough as it might be to believe, it has been over 30 years since the first Goosebumps book was released. With its canny generation-hopping conceit, Disney’s Goosebumps reboot can highlight just how much children’s horror has changed since then.

Disney’s Goosebumps Improves Horror Revival Formula

2019’s Are You Afraid of the Dark revival, Netflix’s The Midnight Club adaptation, the live-action Goosebumps movies, and even Disney’s earlier Stine series Just Beyond all featured young heroes instead of incorporating their ‘90s kid parents into the story, too. One thing that the Goosebumps reboot learned from Fear Street was that young viewers are interested in what life was like for their parents in their teens, and young parents enjoy sharing their nostalgic childhood favorites with their kids. As a result, Disney’s Goosebumps is now perfectly positioned to balance its appeal between new young viewers and fans of the original TV show due to this approach.

The decision to adapt Say Cheese and Die as part of the 2023 reboot is a testament to this plan. Not only was this Goosebumps outing a perennially popular book thanks to its iconic skeletal barbecue cover art, but the TV adaptation is famous for including a young Ryan Gosling in its cast list. Viewers of a certain vintage are likely to recall Say Cheese and Die precisely because of the episode’s famous guest star and memorable art, so the reboot is wise to remind old fans of this classic outing. By giving older fans an audience insertion persona, Disney’s Goosebumps reboot broadens the show’s multi-generational appeal.

Goosebumps premieres on Disney+ on October 13.