Back in 2015, even before Sony's film based on his Goosebumps books became successful enough to spawn a sequel, 20th Century Fox jumped on the R.L. Stine bandwagon by buying the rights to his Fear Street series. Not much has been heard of the idea since then, but now The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Honeymoon director Leigh Janiak has made a deal to oversee what could be three potential movies.
The studio reportedly has an ambitious plan for the three movies to be shot back to back and then released one month apart. Janiak, in a refreshing move for a female director being hired based on their work on an indie (the 2014 horror), is overseeing a sort of development room setup with writers Kyle Killen, Zak Olkewicz and Silka Luisa working on three scripts set in different time periods. Janiak and writing partner Phil Graziadei are set to polish Killen's script first.
As opposed to the Goosebumps stories, Fear Street is aimed at a teen readership and, while some contain supernatural elements, they’re more often murder mysteries with a higher level of violence than the tales for the younger crowd. The series, which now numbers at least 100 titles, is set in the fictional city of Shadyside, Ohio.
We'll have to see if the plan works out, but it represents a move forward for Janiak, who had been attached to direct the remake of The Craft, but with that still stuck in limbo, she's now focusing on this complex task.