Legendary Entertainment and Scholastic Entertainment are teaming to develop a live-action feature adaptation of children’s book series The Magic School Bus, with Rob Letterman (Detective Pikachu) aboard to write the treatment and direct. Elizabeth Banks is set both to produce and play the key role of teacher Ms. Frizzle.

The project lands at Legendary following a lapse in rights at Universal, which announced its development of a live-action/animated hybrid take alongside Scholastic, Banks, and producer Marc Platt in 2020.

Iole Lucchese and Caitlin Friedman will produce the new take for Scholastic, alongside Banks, Max Handelman, and Alison Small for Brownstone Productions, Platt and Adam Siegel for Marc Platt Productions, and Mary Parent, Ali Mendes, and Cale Boyter for Legendary.

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 myriad other extraordinary settings. The original book series ran from 1986 to 2021, with Cole and Degen launching 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.

Over the years, the books have also inspired a touring stage musical (The Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System), a series of bestselling video games, and more.

Most recently seen starring opposite Matthew Macfadyen in the Peacock series The Miniature Wife, Elizabeth Banks next exec produces and stars in Apple TV’s new half-hour comedy from Liz Heldens and Matt Ward. Previously, she’s also been set to star in and EP a show on the Karen Read murder trial for Prime Video. She is repped by UTA, Untitled Entertainment, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.

Most recently at work on the Goosebumps TV series for Disney+ and Hulu, after helming a 2015 film adaptation of Goosebumps starring Jack Black, Rob Letterman is otherwise best known for projects like Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, Shark Tale and Casper. He’s also repped by UTA and Untitled Entertainment.

Upcoming projects for Legendary include Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Digger starring Tom Cruise, Dune: Part Three, Magic: The Gathering, a film adaptation of the Street Fighter game, the live-action Gundam movie for Netflix, and the live action-animation hybrid comedy Animal Friends, to name just a few.