‘A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting’ Netflix Movie: What we know so far

Welcome to an ongoing preview of the upcoming Netflix Original movie A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting where we’ll be taking you through everything you need to know about the development of the movie, who’s going to be starring, who’s behind it and the release date which is now set to be in October 2020.

Let’s kick off by taking you over the source material for the movie. The book trilogy is all about monsters that disrupt our protagonist’s new gig as a babysitter. Joe Ballarini, the writer of the book trilogy is also the film's screenwriter.

Here’s how the book is described by the author:

The Last Kids on Earth meets Goosebumps in this hilarious new series about a secret society of babysitters who protect kids from the monsters that really do live under their beds!

A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting book cover with Netflix badge

Netflix currently has a title from Walden Media called Baby-Sitters Club. This 10 episode series will be available on Netflix. The announcement for that series came in March 2019 and we’re also expecting to hear more on that in 2020 and perhaps even a release date too.

As of the time of updating, A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting is set to hit Netflix on October 14th, 2020.

First look at A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting

We received some photos from the first screening of the movie in September 2020. These photos can be viewed in the gallery.

Production history for A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting

It’s been a long road to get A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting onto the big screen. Walden Media first picked up the movie rights long ago but Netflix’s involvement began in April 2019.

It was announced that Netflix has acquired the film's rights. Rachel Talalay is expected to be the film's director.

Rachel Talalay – Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

Rachel Talalay's achievements include the directing of episodes for BBC Doctor Who and Sherlock. She also directed Freddy’s Dead from 1991 and Tank Girl from 1995.

Production began in August 2019, with the film's first day of filming taking place August 30th.

Rachel Talalay tweeted some pictures of the onset, including one of the two chairs for director, once filming had begun. However, beyond those, there were only a handful of reports about filming. According to KFTV the production was filmed in Vancouver, Canada, which offers generous tax credits.

In November 2019, Rachel Talalay shared a Tweet with the caption “Filming completed!”. That now means the series moves into post-production meaning there’s still quite a lot of work to be done before the movie is ready to be released.

Who’s starring in A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting?

Netflix revealed the majority of their cast roster via the media center in September 2019. When the cast was announced, the writer of the book and movie had the following to say: “Behold, a dream come true. For real.”

Tom Felton, who was most well-known for his part in Harry Potter's Harry Potter series as Draco Malfoy is one of the main cast members.

Other cast announcements are Oona Laurence ("Lost Girls"), Tamara Smart ("Artemis Fowl"), Alessio Skotto ("Rim of The World") and Ian Ho (“A Simple Favour”) as well as Indya Moore (“Pose”).

Later months saw more casting announcements, including Linden Porco and Momona Tamada as well as Ashton Arbab, Samantha Schimmer, and Linden Porco.

Will there be sequels to A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting?

After adapting the book, Netflix may decide to continue with the adaptation of the second one by Joe Ballarini. Netflix will greenlight other sequels based on the success of the first film.

Beasts & Geeks is the second book that would become the next adaptation. Mission to Monster Island is the latest entry.