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<span>Q: My kids enjoyed "Goosebumps" with Jack Black. At the end of that movie, [spoilers redacted]. The implication, we thought, was that this would be the starting point for a sequel. Is one in the works?&nbsp;</span>

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

Actually, a sequel came and went without you knowing, and that may be because it didn't use the first movie as a starting point at all.

"Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" was released in 2018, three years after the first "Goosebumps" movie. Jack Black returns in a cameo, again playing author R.L. Stine, but other than that, the sequel basically has no connection to the first film, and that may be why you don't know about it (let alone why there hasn't been a third). The film made its money back, but it didn't have anything close to the success of the original. 

"Resetting the location and characters is a baffling idea that never pays off," Hollywood Reporter reviewer Josh Spiegel said.

Without giving away the exact details of how the original ended (in case anyone is just now finding out about it and doesn't want the plot spoiled), it did end in a way that left it open for a sequel. But the sequel didn't take that opening. Instead, we got a whole new group of kids and a whole new plot. The only commonality is the tolerably scary hijinks and the meta take on the source material -- both films feature Stine, author of the original Goosebumps books, as a character (although again, he only appears briefly in the sequel). 

The disappointing nature of the second film may have put a hard stop on the budding Goosebumps movie franchise, but not to Stine on the big screen. His other big book series, Fear Street, is also getting the cinematic treatment, and we're guaranteed a sequel right out of the gate -- two movies are already in production simultaneously, and a third is in the script stage, with actors already committed.

 

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