Fear Street is a teenage horror fiction series written by American author R. L. Stine, starting in 1989. In 1995, a series of books inspired by the Fear Street series, called Ghosts of Fear Street, was created for younger readers, and were more like the Goosebumps books in that they featured paranormal adversaries and sometimes had twist endings. R. L. Stine stopped writing Fear Street after penning the Fear Street Seniorsspin-off in 1999. In summer 2005, he brought Fear Street back with the three-part Fear Street Nights miniseries. , over 80 million copies of Fear Street have been sold. R. L. Stine revived the book series in October 2014. In October 2015, it was reported a film based on the series was being developed.
Setting
The Fear Street books take place in the fictionalized city of Shadyside, and feature average teenagers, who are older than the typical Goosebumps preteens, and encounter malignant, sometimes paranormal, adversaries. While some of the Fear Street novels have paranormal elements, such as ghosts, others are simply murder mysteries. Although the Goosebumps books have a few deaths, the deaths presented in Fear Street, particularly the sagas, are far more gruesome, with more blood and gore. The title of the series comes from the name of a fictional street in Shadyside, which was named after the Fear family. Their name was originally spelled as Fier; however, after being told that the family was cursed and that the letters could be rearranged to spell "fire", Simon Fier changed it to Fear in the 19th century. The curse survived, however, and Simon and his wife, Angelica, brought it with them when they moved to Shadyside sometime after the Civil War. It all started in Puritan times when Benjamin and Matthew Fier had an innocent girl and her mother, Susannah and Martha Goode, burned at the stake for allegedly practicing witchcraft. The father and husband, William Goode, put the curse on the Fiers to avenge their deaths, bringing misery and death to the previously mentioned family. Although a fire allegedly burned the last of the Fears, the series features some surviving Fears and suggests that one of the brothers survived. These events are described in the Fear Street Sagas, a spinoff of the main series. Similar to the Goosebumps series, the characters change in each book, although some characters still live on and are mentioned multiple times. Some of the previous novel plots are also mentioned in later books, and some characters appear in multiple stories. The plot for the books occur between the late 1980s and early 1990s, although multiple novels occur within the same chronological year they take place. All books released are also released in the Shadyside chronological timeline it occurs.
Release
The first Fear Street book, The New Girl was published in 1989. Various spin-off series were written, including the Fear Street Sagas and Ghosts of Fear Street., more than 80 million Fear Street books have been sold. Individual books appeared in many bestseller lists, including the USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller list. After a hiatus, R. L. Stine revived the book series in October 2014. Stine had attempted to write a new Fear Street novel for years, but publishers were not interested. Some publishers thought that young adult literature has changed since Fear Street was first published, since the new world of young adult literature is dominated by dystopian worlds and paranormal elements. After Stine told his followers on Twitter that there were no publishers interested in reviving Fear Street, Kat Brzozowski, an editor at St. Martin's Press, contacted him. Initially, the publisher bought three new books, but it was later announced that six new books would be published in the series. Party Games, the first book, was first published on September 30, 2014, in hardcover. The novel is Stine's first Fear Street novel since the last book in the Fear Street Nights series was published in 2005. The novel was followed by Don't Stay Up Late, which was published in April 2015. Stine says the new books will be longer, more adult and more violent, to reflect how young adult literature has changed since Fear Street was first published.
Adaptations
Television
The pilot episode for an unproduced Fear Street television series, titled Ghosts of Fear Street, aired on ABC Television in 1998.
Film
On October 9, 2015, TheWrap reported a film based on the series was being developed by 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment. On February 13, 2017, The Tracking Board reported that Kyle Killen will write the script for the film. On July 13, 2017, Variety reported that Leigh Janiak will direct the film and will oversee the development of the scripts as a trilogy. On February 27, 2019, it was announced that Kiana Madeira and Olivia Welch will star as the lead characters in the trilogy. On March 12, 2019, Deadline Hollywood reported that Benjamin Flores, Jr. was cast to star in the film. Ashley Zukerman, Fred Hechinger, Julia Rehwald and Jeremy Ford joined the cast on March 27. On April 1, 2019, Gillian Jacobs joined the cast of the first film, while Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Brandon Spink and McCabe Slye were cast in the second film. On March 13, 2019, filming for the first film began in East Point, Georgia. Janiak will direct all three films in the series, after originally being set to direct the first and third films. Alex Ross Perry was previously set to direct the second film in the series. While the trilogy had finished filming in September 2019, the series was place in a questionable status with the early termination of the Chernin Entertainment and 20th Century Studios production deal. On April 7, 2020, it was announced that Chernin Entertainment ended their distribution deal with 20th Century Studios and made a multi-year first look deal with Netflix.
