Your Boy R.L. Stine Is Getting a Disney+ Series

Scaring kids is a big part of what kids’ stories are for. A cursory glance at theDisney+grouping of classics from the “vault” reveals more horror stories than you might imagine. Luckily, Disney is also aware that some of their scarier tales likeThe Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, The Magician’sApprentice, andSleeping Beautyare a tiny bit out of date. EnterGoosebumpsscribe R.L. Stine and his lesser-known comic book series,Just Beyond,a tongue-in-cheek horror series for kids that’s being adapted into a TV show on Disney+.

Don’t call itBlack Mirrorfor kids; it’s probably going to be at least slightly smarter thanBlack Mirror.Last year,Stine toldFatherlythat he thoughtBlack Mirror: Bandersnatchwas “boring.” So the gauntlet has been thrown down by the master of horror for kids, and now, its’ time to see if he’s right.

The newDisney+show will adapt theJust Beyondseries from BOOM! Comics, but what that means isn’t entirely clear. The best guess is that this will be PG- or G-rated horror for older kids, which, frankly, might make it better than the movie version ofScary Stories To Tell In The Darkthat never should have been made. So, willJust Beyondbe the horror-anthology for kids that kids have been owed for a long time? Maybe.

According toreports, the new R.L. Stine show on Disney+ will be run by Seth Grahame-Smith, the guy who didAbraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, andthe (underrated) 2012Dark Shadowsreboot movie. Here’s hoping that this series is more like those projects, and slightlylesslike the variousGoosebumps电影。恐怖的孩子们在电视上or in movies is tricky, but plumbing the depths of R.L. Stine’s deranged brain is a pretty great place to start.

Just Beyondwill debuton Disney+sometime in 2021 or 2022.