The Magic School Bus movie is happening with Rob Letterman and Elizabeth Banks

A live-action adaptation of The Magic School Bus is in development, with director Rob Letterman attached and Elizabeth Banks cast as Ms. Frizzle. The project is being produced by Legendary Pictures, and Banks has been linked to some version of the film since at least 2020, when Universal was pursuing it.

Letterman previously directed the 2015 Goosebumps movie and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, both modern takes on nostalgic properties. Banks brings a strong comedy background from credits such as The Lego Movie, 30 Rock and Scrubs, and her Effie Trinket performance in The Hunger Games suggests she can inhabit Ms.

Frizzle’s eccentric energy. The Magic School Bus began as a series of books in the 1980s by Joanna Cole with illustrations by Bruce Degen, about a teacher who takes students on adventures aboard a living bus that can shrink to microscopic size.

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