Live-Action MAGIC SCHOOL BUS Movie in the Works With Elizabeth Banks as Ms. Frizzle

A live-action feature adaptation of the children’s book series The Magic School Bus is in the works with Rob Letterman (Detective Pikachu) aboard to write and direct. Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games) is set both to produce and play the key role of teacher Ms. Frizzle.

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, The Magic School Bus has sold more than 90 million books in print and since expanded across television, digital platforms, and other areas.

Created by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen and published by Scholastic, the children’s “edutainment” franchise follows quirky science teacher Ms. Valerie Frizzle and her young class of students as they board a sentient, shape-shifting school bus that transports them on educational adventures through outer space, the interior of the human body, and a myriad of other extraordinary settings.

The original book series ran from 1986 to 2021, with Cole and Degen launching the spin-off series Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures in 2001.

The most famous screen adaptation of the books would have to be 1994-1997’s The Magic School Bus, which marked PBS’s first fully animated series and had Lily Tomlin voicing Ms. Frizzle.

The show ranked among the highest-rated PBS programs for school-age children by the end of its run and was followed up by The Magic School Bus Rides Again, a Netflix series with Tomlin reprising as Ms. Frizzle, where Kate McKinnon played her younger sister, Ms. Fiona Felicity Frizzle. That series aired for three seasons between 2017 and 2021.

via: Deadline