Leigh Janiak has been tabbed to direct a movie adaptation of R.L. Stine's Fear Street book series. The prolific, bestselling Stine is known for his many horror fiction novels, geared toward children with the Goosebumps series and teenagers/young adults with Fear Street. The latter series takes place entirely in the fictional town of Shadyside, Ohio, often dealing with murder mysteries and paranormal activity terrorizing its people.
Awake and Lone Star creator Kyle Killen has already signed on to write the script for the first Fear Street movie, which will be produced by Chernin Entertainment and 20th Century Fox, overseen by producer Jason Young. The companies are reportedly considering a trilogy of Fear Street movies, and Janiak has been selected to go behind the cameras for the first installment.
As reported by The Tracking Board, Janiak will direct the first of what could be three Fear Street movies that would be filmed in succession. Janiak would oversee all three scripts, the second of which will be written by Zak Olkewicz and the third by Silka Luisa. According to The Tracking Board, Fear Street remains only a "development title" and Killen's script has not yet been completed.
Janiak appears to be a good fit to take directing duties for Fear Street and its target audience. She made her directorial debut in 2014 with the acclaimed horror mystery Honeymoon, and followed that up by directing two episodes of the MTV series based on the Scream franchise. She had also been developing a sequel to 1995 witchcraft thriller The Craft, but is reportedly no longer part of the project.
Stine's Fear Street book series has a wealth of beloved source material to draw from, and Janiak already has some directing under her belt that was geared toward many of the same viewers that would go to see the adaptation. Stine's series has been published in various forms since 1989 with the most recent novel, Give Me A K-I-L-L, coming out this past April. Spanning generations and selling over 100 million copies, Fear Street is a book series that has a good chance of success on the big screen.
Of course, the Fear Street movie is still very early in development. There's no way of telling how the adaptation will turn out at this point, or how Chernin and 20th Century Fox plan to tackle the many possible stories to be found within the sprawling book series. But the production is certainly off to a promising start by attaching Janiak as director.
Janiak's Fear Street adaptation is in development and has no release date. We'll be sure to keep you updated with any more news.
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Source: The Tracking Board