Collider reports that Kiana Madeira (Sacred Lies) and Olivia Welch (Modern Family) have been tapped for leading roles in 20th Century Fox’s upcoming Fear Street trilogy film adaptations based on author R.L. Stine’s YA horror book series of the same name.
According to the outlet’s sources Madeira and Welch will be playing “gay teenagers trying to navigate their rocky relationship when they’re targeted by the crazy horrors of their small town, Shadyside. Each actress will be playing two different characters — one in the mid-’90s, and one in the 1600s, when gay women faced even greater adversity and repercussions.”
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Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) is set to pen and direct three scripts for Fear Street which will be shot back-to-back-to-back. Janiak will also served as the first and third films’ director with Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell) set to helm the second one. Jason Young will oversee the projects for the studio.
The trilogy’s planned release dates are said to be close to each other. The first three books in the “Fear Street” series are “The New Girl,” “The Surprise Party” and “The Overnight,” though there is no word on which ones the three scripts are based on.
Janiak is reportedly overseeing a writers room to coordinate the stories, which will take place in different time periods. Kyle Killen wrote the first, Zak Olkewicz wrote the second, and Silka Luisa is writing the third. Janiak and her partner Phil Graziadei will work on the first one. Chernin Entertainment (War for the Planet of the Apes) is on board to produce.
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The “Fear Street” series is a horror series for teenage readers that Stine began in 1989. He wrote “Ghost of Fear Street” beginning in 1995 for younger readers and stopped after doing the “Fear Street Seniors” spinoff in 1999. He came back to the series in 2005 with the three-part “Fear Street Nights” miniseries. He revived the series again in 2014. The books are set in the fictional town of Shadyside, Ohio and take place in the 1980s and 1990s. Some characters occasionally crossed over between books. There are 52 books in the main series alone.
R.L. Stine is also known for his Goosebumps series of books, which became a film in 2015 starring Jack Black.
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