Movies
‘A Nightmare On Elm Street’ Is Getting Remade… Again
New Line plans to bring the Dream Demon back from the dead.
In 2010 Warner Bros./New Line Cinema released their Platinum Dunes-produced reboot of Wes Craven’s A Nightmare On Elm Street, which didn’t exactly raise any eyebrows at the box office – or with fans of the 30 year old franchise.
Now, just 5 years after being resurrected, Freddy Krueger is getting yet another fresh start.
This pretty reputable tracking board dropped a bomb Wednesday night reporting that New Line is planning to remake A Nightmare On Elm Street once again. As of Thursday morning, we here at Bloody Disgusting can confirm this information.
What’s interesting to note is that Platinum Dunes isn’t listed as a producer on the project, which is still vacant.
As for a writer, New Line has tapped Orphan scribe David Leslie Johnson to bring the red-and-green sweater/fedora wearing Freddy Krueger back to the big screen.
Toby Emmerich, Walter Hamada, and Dave Neustadter will oversee for New Line.
For those unacquainted with Johnson, the site explains that just earlier this week was announced to write Warner Bros. Dungeons and Dragons adaptation, fits the series like a glove with razors, as the former “Walking Dead” writer is forging a new presence in the horror space. The Wrath of the Titans scribe is next penning James Wan’s Conjuring sequel The Conjuring: The Enfield Poltergeist and Disney’s horror Something Wicked This Way Comes.
That’s quite a resume.
Samuel Bayer directed the 2010 reboot that introduced Jackie Earle Haley as the new Freddy. While Haley did a bang up job, he just wasn’t Freddy. Robert Englund played the iconic slasher from Wes Craven’s 1984 A Nightmare On Elm Street through several films, concluding in 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason.
The biggest hurdle New Line is going to have to overcome is finding a new Freddy, again. If you look at various other slasher franchises – Friday the 13th, Halloween and even Texas Chain Saw Massacre – it’s easy to throw someone else behind a mask. With Elm Street, it’s the one slasher with personality, and a vital look that sells the character. Jackie Earle Haley was never going to be “better than,” and thus the impact of the character weakened on screen.
Some of you are going to laugh, but here’s my solution: I’d love to see a female Krueger slashing up teens, turning their dreams into nightmares. It would be a fresh take on both the character and slasher subgenre.
I’ve actually read Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer’s screenplays for the 2010 remake. They introduced the brilliant micro-napping, which was underutilized and realized like shit on screen. Bayer, frankly, is an awful director. The one thing that really plagued the reboot, though, was the lack of creativity. It went for primal scares and mimicked scenes from Craven’s classic. After 30 years, we’ve seen Freddy turn people into cockroaches and pizza, so the mere idea that a rotating room was going to thrill us was just silly. Going forward, I hope the new writer will inject some serious creativity so that the title actually carries some meaning. Let’s see some fucked up nightmares this time around…
There’s a lot of rich mythology that has barely been touched, but it’s constantly a victim to studio’s focusing on selling to the teens who are hoping for one good scare on a date. It’s hard to sell an R-rated slasher, and it’s a business, so sometimes the art suffers. But other times art can elevate a film to a new place, further the genre, and revitalize fans’ faith in the franchise. This has to be that film. This has to be a unique vision. I am very curious to see who they hire to direct – especially now that James Wan is Warner Bros.’ go-to guy with his Conjuring franchise. Anyone want to take some wagers?
Anyways, this is a good thing, believe it or not. New Line Cinema is “The house that Freddy built,” and it’s been a damn shame to see them turning their back on the genre that made them who they are today. New Line’s identity is shrouded in horror, and the fact that they sold out Jason Voorhees to Paramount just to make Interstellar still rubs me the wrong way. Maybe this is the film that brings New Line back to their roots, and thus revives our beloved genre in the production house that once lived and breathed horror?
And one more thought for the naysayers: It’s this or nothing. Would you rather Freddy stay dead forever? Tell me below…
The Evil Dead franchise is alive and well these days, with brand new installment Evil Dead Burn arriving in theaters this summer and Evil Dead Wrath already set for release in 2028.
But one person you shouldn’t expect to see in either movie is Bruce Campbell, who made it clear back when “Ash vs. Evil Dead” was cancelled that his days of playing Evil Dead hero Ash Williams are very much over. Sure, he made a very small vocal cameo in Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise, but Campbell is still sticking to his vow of being retired from playing Ash.
In a new chat with Detroit Free Press, Bruce Campbell again makes it clear that he’s moved on from Ash Williams and the Evil Dead franchise has moved on from Bruce Campbell.
Campbell explains, “We’ve done three things: We moved away from the cabin, we’ve moved away from Sam Raimi, we’ve moved away from Ash and Bruce Campbell.”
“Thankfully, Evil Dead Rise made the most of any money we’ve made from any Evil Dead, so far, and it validated the fact that we can get away from those main elements,” Campbell continues. “You’ve got to find a new audience, because the original Evil Dead fans, you get some of them, you’re not going to get all of them, because they like those original elements.”
“They’re Hollywood, they’re studio movies now,” Campbell says of the franchise today. “They’re not indie movies anymore. And that’s where I found that my use has just phased out.”
Bruce Campbell’s hands-on involvement with the Evil Dead movies has come to an end both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. Campbell told Forbes this year, “We had a meeting a couple of years ago and the French director of Evil Dead Burn was there to experience his first script development meeting. He turned in a 10-page treatment to say, “Here’s my rough idea. Here’s what I’m thinking, A to Z’ and I think he got 20 pages of notes back.”
“That’s when I said to myself, ‘You guys got this. I think you guys got this.’ I got tired of arguing points with someone who’s 26 years old about story and structure, and all that sort of stuff, and what matters and what doesn’t,” Campbell explained. “So, I just found out it’s way better to just step back. I’m partners with the guys. Nothing else has changed. I just told them, ‘Guys. I’m actually doing my own thing now, and it takes a lot of time and attention. If I can get fewer emails for approvals not clogging my timeline, that’s good for me at this point.'”
Up next from Bruce Campbell? He directed and stars in the indie comedy Ernie & Emma, which follows a pear salesman who embarks on a journey following the death of his wife.
After 25 years as an executive secretary, Emma leaves behind a detailed list of instructions regarding her ashes, which leads Ernie on a series of challenging and reflective escapades.
Campbell is hitting the road with Ernie & Emma. Follow him on Twitter for updates.
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