Movies
Kevin Bacon Expresses Interest in Playing Freddy Krueger
Most of the big horror franchises are on the fast track to get brand spankin’ new reboots in the coming years, including Friday the 13th, Predator, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. But what about Nightmare on Elm Street? The franchise has been dead ever since that awful 2010 remake, and six years later, it doesn’t seem to be showing many signs of life.
Back in August of last year, it was reported that New Line was rebooting the Elm Street franchise once more, with David Leslie Johnson (Orphan, The Conjuring 2) attached to pen the screenplay, but we haven’t heard a peep about the project since then. Is it still happening? Did those plans fall through at some point in the past year? At the moment, it’s impossible to tell.
This latest Elm Street tidbit, well, it comes from an unlikely source.
Over on Twitter this past Friday night, a fan posted a tweet that expressed interest in Kevin Bacon playing Freddy Krueger in a future reboot of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and much to her surprise – and ours – Bacon actually responded to the tweet. Not only did he respond but he quoted the tweet on his own profile, and he seemed to express interest in the idea.
“If A Nightmare on Elm Street gets rebooted again can we please somehow get Kevin Bacon as Freddy? I think he’d be fantastic,” tweeted @BettieToxic.
“I like the way you think Bettie,” replied @KevinBacon.
Kevin Bacon is of course no stranger to horror, his career forever tethered to the genre thanks to his role in the original Friday the 13th. Subsequently, Bacon starred in Tremors, Flatliners, Stir of Echoes, Hollow Man, and, most recently, Greg McLean’s The Darkness. Unlike many Hollywood stars who got their start in horror, Bacon continues to embrace his roots, and he’s even set to reprise the role of Valentine McKee in an upcoming Tremors TV series – which he will also produce.
Might Bacon’s next move be to jump from playing victim in Friday the 13th to playing villain in Nightmare on Elm Street? Of course, his tweet should probably be taken with a grain of salt, but the fact that he took the time to reply in the way he did certainly seems to at least suggest that he’d take the role if he was offered it. And knowing that he’s interested, at least on some level, why the hell wouldn’t New Line make that offer? Kevin Bacon as Freddy? Now that would be awesome!
Bacon certainly has the chops (and the look) to play a sinister villain, and he also has experience playing a child predator. He starred as a recovering pedophile in the 2004 film The Woodsman, which is interesting to note given Elm Street remake star Jackie Earle Haley played a similar role prior to being cast as the dream demon. Not saying that really means anything at all, but again, just something interesting to point out.
Would you like to see Kevin Bacon as Freddy Krueger? Sound off below!
Movies
‘Backrooms’ Director Kane Parsons Is No Fan of Generative AI: “Defeats the Purpose Entirely for Me”
There has been a lot of talk recently about filmmakers embracing generative AI as part of the filmmaking process, from Darren Aronofsky to Martin Scorsese. But what about filmmakers that are against the use of Gen AI for creative pursuits? You can count 20-year-old Backrooms director Kane Parsons among that group, which should give you some hope for the future.
In a new chat with The Australian, the self-taught young filmmaker makes it crystal clear that he won’t be using generative AI in any of his upcoming filmmaking projects.
“I think I’m in the same boat as most well-adjusted people,” Parsons tells the outlet. “If I could snap my fingers and make generative AI disappear forever, I probably would. Creatively, I get no enjoyment from using those tools. It defeats the purpose entirely for me.”
“What interests me more is interrogating it artistically,” Parsons notes. “We already live in a world where you walk outside and there are billboards and signs that are obvious AI slop. That’s become part of our visual reality. To me, generative AI feels less like innovation than a symptom of a broader cultural and economic rot.”
He explains, “I’m interested in using that iconography in art – not using AI to make the art itself, but examining what it represents. I definitely want to explore it further in future projects.”
Kane Parsons also notes during the interview with The Australian, “… there’s so much at stake and so many genuinely harmful consequences already happening.”
Backrooms marks young prodigy Kane Parsons’ feature directorial debut, and it’s based on his own series of YouTube videos that were brought to life using Blender, the open-source 3D computer graphics software suite. So it’s no surprise that Parsons, who has hand-made his filmmaking career up to this point, isn’t buying into the hoopla around Generative AI.
His debut feature is the #1 movie in the world, so perhaps he’s onto something.
What’s next from Kane Parsons, you ask? Stay tuned…
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