A ‘Magic School Bus’ Movie is in the Works with Elizabeth Banks Set to Produce & Lead!!

It’s time to gas up the bus. The beloved picture book series The Magic School Bus is rolling up to the big screen, courtesy of Legendary Pictures. The studio has already recruited a notable name to drive the bus.

According to reports, Elizabeth Banks will produce The Magic School Bus and star as Ms. Frizzle, the elementary school teacher who leads her class on a series of improbable field trips on the titular conveyance. She was first signed on to the project back in 2020, when Universal had the rights to the property and planned to make a live-action-animation hybrid film; Legendary has now acquired the project, with Banks in tow. It’s the latest project for the ever-busy Banks, who played the shrunken title character of The Miniature Wife on Peacock earlier this year, and is set to star alongside Ted Danson in a new Apple TV comedy series. She’s also starring in and producing the science fiction thriller DreamQuil, and playing herself in the David Wain comedy Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.

What is ‘The Magic School Bus’?

Created by writer Joanna Cole and illustrator Bruce Degen, and published by Scholastic, The Magic School Bus tells the tale of eccentric teacher Ms. Frizzle and a sapient school bus who convey her students (including the perpetually morose Arnold) on a series of impossible field trips, taking them into the human body, outer space, under the sea, and much, much more. They gained a new audience when they were adapted into a PBS animated series of the same name; actor and comedian Lily Tomlin voiced Ms. Frizzle, while the catchy theme song was performed by Little Richard. It was later revived on Netflix as The Magic School Bus Rides Again; Tomlin returned as Ms. Frizzle, while Kate McKinnon joined the cast as her younger sister, Fiona Frizzle.

The Magic School Bus is set to be written and directed by Rob Letterman (Detective Pikachu); it will be his second collaboration with Scholastic Entertainment, as he helmed the 2015 big-screen adaptation of R.L. Stine‘s Goosebumps series. Iole Lucchese and Caitlin Friedman will produce for Scholastic, alongside Banks, Max Handelman, and Alison Small for Brownstone Productions; Marc Platt and Adam Siegel for Marc Platt Productions; and Mary Parent, Ali Mendes, and Cale Boyter for Legendary.