David Schwimmer May Be Out of His Mind in ‘Goosebumps: The Vanishing’ Trailer

David Schwimmer may be out of his mind as he begins acting incredibly erratic in the official trailer Goosebumps: The Vanishing.

“I want you to have a really fun and also safe summer out here,” Schwimmer’s Anthony tells his twins Cece (Jayden Bartels) and Devin (Sam McCarthy) at the beginning of the trailer when they arrive at his Brooklyn home for the summer in the Goosebumps anthology series‘ second season. “I only have one rule: Stay out of the basement.”

As things begin to go awry, Anthony may be behind it all as he investigates his brother’s death when they were kids and went missing.

According to the series logline, “A threat is stirring, and [the kids] quickly realize that dark secrets are among them, triggering a chain of events that unravel a profound mystery. As they delve into the unknown, Cece, Devin and their friends — Alex (Francesca Noel), CJ (Elijah M. Cooper) and Frankie (Galilea La Salvia) — find themselves entangled in the chilling tale of four teenagers who mysteriously vanished in 1994.”

Ana Ortiz rounds out the cast of the show. She portrays Jen, a police detective who remains rooted in her Brooklyn neighborhood after experiencing a tragic event that involved her friends in adolescence.

Goosebumps was originally a limited series but was upped to an anthology after the first season, starring Justin Long and Rachael Harris, did well on Disney+. According to Nielsen figures, it racked up 1.9 billion minutes of viewing time in the United States for the four weeks after its October 2023 premiere.

At New York Comic Con over the weekend, the second season’s cast and creative team — including Schwimmer, Ortiz, Bartels, McCarthy, Cooper, La Salvia, Noel, and Stony Blyden, co-showrunner/co-creator Rob Letterman and co-showrunner Hilary Winston — spilled a number of details about what books inspired this second installment of the R.L. Stine adaptation, why the series became an anthology, a found footage episode helmed by The Blair Witch director, and more. 

About the show’s decision to start with a whole new cast of teens and families, Winston explained, “There’s over 200 Goosebumps books, so the idea of delving into a new story each season and starting over felt like it was a really great way for us to serve the spirit of Goosebumps.” Winston said “everything came” this season from the team’s love of Stay Out of the Basement, including the botanist career of Schwimmer’s character Anthony. 

Winston and Letterman, both also co-executive producers, teased The Haunted Car, Monster Blood and Welcome to Camp Nightmare as other books fans should expect to see adapted this season, with special effects and creature creation courtesy of Peter Jackson’s Wētā FX. Season two, they revealed, will feature a found footage episode, filmed on a hand-held camera, to be helmed by The Blair Witch director Eduardo Sanchez. “We watched the first cut and were in stunned silence with how incredible it was,” Wintson said.

The format of teens from the past facing tragedy and their children, a new generation, confronting the horrific origins of that will also return. “Thirty years ago, a group of teens breaks into an old fort on a dare to sleep over in a room where they heard that the military did some crazy experiments back in the day, and those teens vanish and are never seen again — were killed that night. We cut to 30, years later, and we bring in all these new characters,” Letterman said, while describing the cast of characters played by the actors on stage. “They all kind of come together and maybe they repeat that same dare that happened.”

Schwimmer added, “The foundation for all of us is this backstory, this emotional, grounded back story to the characters. It really is horror, action comedy and with a lot of lot of great suspense.” The show kicks off with his character Anthony, who has returned to his childhood home and is on sabbatical from his job to care for his mother who has dementia. His two kids, CeCe and Devon, have come to stay with him for the summer in the house where he’s built a research set-up to continue his work at home, and swears the kids off from the basement.

In terms of what fans can expect from Schwimmer in his first horror role, Winston teased a darker turn for the actor. “There is an episode that David is so, so excellent — and so scary. He’s just so masterful at that flip,” the showrunner said. “This episode just showcases how close those comedic chops are to horror.”

The panel previewed some of the haunting locations of season two, which takes audiences into New York’s various boroughs. Filming locations included Ridgewood, Fort Totten, Citi Field and Astoria Park in Queens, as well as Bushwick in Brooklyn, and the New York subway system. “We really did embrace New York,” Letterman said. “When we were conceiving this story, we were like, everybody’s seen Sex and the City, seen Manhattan,” Winston added. “But there’s so many interesting, cool places in New York that I feel don’t get screen time.”

Nicholas Stoller and Letterman developed the series, produced by Sony Pictures Television, for Disney Branded Television. Winston and Letterman serve as showrunners and executive producers, alongside Stoller, Neal H. Moritz, Iole Lucchese, Pavun Shetty, Conor Welch, Caitlin Friedman, Erin O’Malley, James Eagan and Karl Frankenfield.

All eight episodes of Goosebumps: The Vanishing hits Disney+ and Hulu on Jan. 10, 2025.

Oct. 21, 10 a.m. This story has been updated to include the Goosebumps: The Vanishing NYCC panel.