R.L. Stine's great Goosebumps literary villain Slappy had to appear in a movie based on the best-selling children's horror books. Seriously, somebody would have been a real dummy not to include the vicious little guy.
But he had a chance to show up even earlier in the Goosebumps film (out on Blu-ray and DVD) today, as seen in this exclusive alternate opening.
Jack Black voices Slappy and also stars as the movie's R.L. Stine, who has to team up with his daughter (Odeya Rush) and the kid next door (Dylan Minnette) to round up all the monsters after they get loose from his books. Slappy, arguably Hollywood's most psychotic ventriloquist's dummy, is the main man in charge, and in this version of the movie's beginning, he spooks a pair of movers played by Kumail Nanjiani and Luka Jones. "Who you calling dummy ... DUMMY?!" Slappy says rather intimidatingly (for a dummy).
The Goosebumps release — which also includes an alternate ending, deleted scenes and Slappy featurette — also is launching a major new book-donation campaign from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Scholastic. Distributed by Save the Children, 20,000 books — including a bunch of Stine's Goosebumps tomes — are being donated through the Scholastic Possible Fund reading initiative to children in underserved communities and those recovering from crises and disasters all over the USA.
