Goosebumps author R.L. Stine has a specific book he’d like to see adapted to screen, and it’s a decidedly surprising choice. The second season of Disney+’s Goosebumps series, titled Goosebumps: The Vanishing, is set to arrive on the streaming platform on January 10th. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Stine shared which of his Goosebumps books he would like to see brought to life in the show’s future, with the author selecting the story Brain Juice.
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“It’s about kids who drink this purple liquid and get smarter and smarter,” Stine told THR. “They get too smart for everything. They get thrown out of school, they lose all their friends, and then they’re kidnapped by aliens, and on the way to the other planet, they get stupider and stupider.”
However, Stine is seemingly not particularly optimistic about Brain Juice being adapted for Disney+, stating, “It’s my favorite Goosebumps book, but nobody knows it and it’ll never be adapted.”
Brain Juice is indeed not among the more universally known Goosebumps stories. Stine’s Goosebumps anthology series includes many stand-outs that have already been adapted in the original ’90s Goosebumps series or the Disney+ revival, such as The Haunted Mask 1 and 2, Welcome to Camp Nightmare, Stay Out of the Basement, Monster Blood, Attack of the Mutant, and many others.
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Brain Juice was first published in 1998 as part of Stine’s Goosebumps Series 2000 collection. The series acted as a follow-up to the proper Goosebumps book series, which Stine had formally concluded with 1997’s Monster Blood IV. Part of the reason why Brain Juice may have fallen through the cracks of Goosebumps acclaim is the abbreviated run Goosebumps Series 2000 had, with some behind-the-scenes issues between publisher Parachute Press and Scholastic leading to only 25 of the planned 40 books in the series being written.
The Goosebumps books were a phenomenon in the ’90s and launched Stine to fame as the Stephen King of children’s book writers. Goosebumps was first adapted into the aforementioned ’90s TV series on Fox Kids, which ran four seasons. Goosebumps later made its way to the big screen with 2015’s Goosebumps movie and its 2018 sequel Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, with Goosebumps subsequently returning to series format on Disney+ and Hulu in 2023 with the ongoing streaming series.
Disney+’s Goosebumps is unique in the franchise in that it does not follow the horror anthology format of the books or the original TV show, instead devoting each individual season to a specific story and set of characters. This could also account for why Stine doesn’t think the odds favor Brain Juice ever being adapted despite his affection for it. However, with the generations-long popularity of Goosebumps and the success it has seen on Disney+ and Hulu, there could be paths to standalone, anthology stories being told alongside the main story of each season. Hopefully, this could lead to Brain Juice, as R.L. Stine’s favorite Goosebumps story, eventually being adapted to live-action alongside the franchise’s more popular stories.
Goosebumps: The Vanishing arrives on both Disney+ and Hulu on January 10th, 2025.
