‘Goosebumps’ Movie Sequel Promo Reveals Iconic Horrorland Setting, Plot Details
It has been established for a while now that the Goosebumps movie is getting a sequel, and Comingsoon was the first online source to report that the crew just dropped a huge update about its iconic setting. The magazine that originally carried the news, License Global, even included some promo art for the movie that reveals the movie’s subtitle: “Horrorland,” a single word that is sure to be a blast from the past for many people and which has huge implications in terms of plot.
Any nineties kid who has even a semi-morbid bone in their body is sure to remember R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps and the horrifying-by-child-standards stories the series gave us. The Haunted Mask, Night of the Living Dummy, The Werewolf at Fever Swamp, Chicken Chicken… Maybe that last one wasn’t so horrifying even to a little kid, but one entry that was definitely responsible for a few sleepless nights (some of them spent under the covers, shining a flashlight on the pages of this very book) is One Day at Horrorland. The haunted amusement park captured the minds millions of young horror fans. It’s a safe bet that, to this day, the book cover with a horned monster peeking over the white sign and the deadly park rides silhouetted against the sky in the background is burned on a lot of those minds.
Horrorland’s huge nostalgia factor is probably a big part of the reason director Rob Letterman and the rest of the Goosebumps movie producers chose it for the movie’s subtitle. Variety notes nostalgia was a big factor in making the first movie so successful — it got a lot of older viewers into the theaters — and it follows that its successor will try to recapture that selling point.
Of course, nostalgia is not the only reason Horrorland will make an awesome setting for the Goosebumps movie sequel. Part of the reason why the story was so evocative was that an amusement park is just a series of fun diversions, and Horrorland puts a delightfully dark twist on what is already literally a series of amusements — Stine calls it “the scariest place on Earth.” It made for an awesome reading experience on the page, and it will have the same effect when translated to the screen.
Like the first Goosebumps movie, which borrowed monsters from a few dozen of the books and centered them around an original plot, the sequel will probably not be a straight-up adaptation of one Goosebumps book. We will likely see elements from many of the books, and Screen Rant reports Jack Black will come back to portray R.L. Stine. Hopefully, we will also see the return of Dylan Minette, who has starred in 13 Reasons Why and Don’t Breathe in the time since he played a lead role in the first film.
Most of the crew is also returning. Director Rob Letterman and screenwriter Darren Lemke, as well as producers Deborah Forte and Neal H. Moritz, are set to reprise their behind-the-scenes roles.
A Goosebumps movie sequel was inevitable. The first film made around $150 million on a $58 million budget, and a $92 million profit margin for any movie is known to be a pretty good motivator for Hollywood to produce a follow-up. Still, the amazing setting is a stroke of brilliance sure to draw in at least a few viewers who would not have gone otherwise.
The License Global issue that reported the Goosebumps movie news also carried promos for a few other movies, including Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Jurassic World 2, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Peter Rabbit, and the next Slenderman film.
The Goosebumps movie sequel was initially set to debut in January 2018, but Deadline revealed back in February that the date has been pushed back to September of the same year.
[Featured Image by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Sony Pictures Entertainment]
