Disney Shockingly Cancels Hit Horror Anthology Series Despite Strong Reviews
There won’t be a third season of Goosebumps on Disney+. Deadline reports that the horror anthology, inspired by R.L. Stine’s famous book series, has been canceled after just two seasons.
The show came from Disney Branded Television and was produced by Sony Pictures Television. Each season told a brand-new story with a different setting and cast. The second season, called Goosebumps: The Vanishing, followed teenage siblings who discovered a strange threat. As they tried to figure it out, they uncovered a mystery involving four teenagers who had disappeared back in 1994.
Unlike the original 1995 Goosebumps series, which told a new spooky story each episode, this Disney+ version focused on one long storyline per season. It still included some of the monsters and items from the books, but the style was more serialized.
The series was developed by Rob Letterman and Nicholas Stoller. Letterman, who directed the first Goosebumps movie in 2015, also directed the pilot episode for the show. Sony Pictures Television, Original Film, and Scholastic Entertainment, the same team behind the 2015 film and its 2018 sequel Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, were also involved in making the series.
The first season premiered on October 13, 2023, on both Disney+ and Hulu as part of the “Hallowstream” and “Huluween” events. The show quickly gained attention and even made it onto streaming charts.
According to JustWatch, it was the seventh most-watched show across all platforms in the U.S. during the week of October 9–15, 2023, and jumped to third place the following week. Reelgood ranked it ninth for the week of October 12, 2023, and TV Time listed it as the eighth most-watched original series in the U.S. later that month.
Critics gave the first season a 76% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the site’s review summary saying, “Wickedly inventive enough to give viewers the creeps if not nightmares, Goosebumps solidly transplants R.L. Stine’s spooky stories into a serialized format.” The first season also got a 60/100 on Metacritic, showing more mixed reviews.
The second season, which debuted on January 10, 2025, earned a 77% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a slightly better 65/100 on Metacritic. Despite the positive numbers and a strong fan following, Disney+ decided to pull the plug in August 2025.
Neither Disney+ nor Sony has shared exactly why the show was canceled, and fans are already voicing disappointment online. For now, Goosebumps ends after two seasons, leaving viewers without another trip into R.L. Stine’s creepy, monster-filled world.
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