'Jack the Giant Killer' Writer to Pen 'Goosebumps' Adaptation for Columbia (Exclusive)

Darren Lemke is getting Goosebumps, closing a deal to write Columbia Pictures’ big-screen adaptation of children’s horror series.

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Columbia picked up the rights to the more than 50 books written by R.L. Stine in May 2008. The project has seen several writers on it, as the studio tries to crack the code for the story. Columbia is starting from page one with Lemke.

The Goosebumps series is known for paying homage to classic sci-fi/horror movies such as Night of the Living Dead and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as well as the twist endings of The Twilight Zone. Being kids books, they are also free of the usual horror tropes of blood and sex (but are spiced with laughs).

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The property, with it’s all-ages supernatural trappings, seems to fall into Lempke’s wheelhouse. The scribe, repped by UTA and Loeb and Loeb, wrote the spec script for Jack the Giant Killer, which comes out later this year from New Line as a Bryan Singer-directed fantasy. He also set up a re-imagining of The Nutcracker at New Line and worked on Shrek Forever After.

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