Editorials
Dear New Line, Now is the Time to Make Freddy Krueger Great Again
As Pennywise scares up record numbers, we pine for the return of another icon.
In the wake of Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street coming along and changing the face of horror, New Line Cinema was appropriately dubbed “The House That Freddy Built”; after all, the ensuing franchise’s 10-year box office dominance turned the fledgling independent company into a major Hollywood player.
All these years later, New Line is once again on top of the horror world thanks to the continuing success of The Conjuring Universe and, of course, this past weekend’s IT. The final domestic numbers reveal that Andy Muschietti’s new adaptation of Stephen King’s novel pulled in $123 million over the weekend, making it the most successful opening weekend for a horror movie in the history of cinema. Furthermore, it’s already one of the most dominant rated-R movies of all time.
Horror, it seems, has never been more ALIVE.
What lessons should Hollywood be learning from IT‘s record-shattering performance? Well, for starters, it should now be crystal clear that horror films, like superhero films, can be big-budget tentpoles for studios. Furthermore, Muschietti and the gang have sent the message that audiences are hungry for the kind of truly terrifying, go-for-broke horror that made the genre so dominant in, well, the decade that Freddy Krueger reigned supreme.
Hey, that gives me an idea…
It’s no secret that the box office success (or failure) of one big horror movie starts to give studios ideas about other big horror movies they may be considering; Scream, for example, ushered in a whole new wave of teen slashers, while the recent under-performance of Rings effectively killed the in-the-works reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise. As fans, we may not measure the success of any given film by the money it has made, but the reality is that the studio heads in charge of the genre most definitely do.
With IT making such a killing in just three days, you can bet that every major studio is right about now holding boardroom meetings in an effort to capitalize on the fact that horror is the hottest thing in Hollywood at the moment. The landscape of horror is very likely going to be changing in the coming years… and the future is looking bright.
So then, what’s next? Well, if the Elm Street-esque IT made you hungry for the return of Freddy, you certainly weren’t alone this weekend. It’s impossible to look at IT‘s box office numbers and not think that New Line is sitting on a similar goldmine with the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise; a goldmine that has remained untapped for nearly ten years now.
Back in 2010, New Line and Platinum Dunes reached the #1 spot on the box office charts with Samuel Bayer’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, a remake that managed to turn a profit while also disappointing most fans of the franchise; a lifeless, uninspired reboot, Elm Street ’10 essentially killed the franchise that it was supposed to re-animate.
Seven years later, we haven’t heard a peep from Freddy Krueger. It was reported back in 2015 that New Line had hired David Leslie Johnson (The Conjuring 2) to write the script for another Elm Street reboot, but it seems the focus was soon shifted to the two-part IT and the aforementioned Conjuring Universe.
What’s the latest on all that, you ask?
We reached out to several sources who all tell us that, as of this past weekend, there is absolutely zero internal talk at New Line about the return of Freddy.
Of course, this could soon change. No matter what we’ve been told, I can’t imagine there’s a single person over at New Line who didn’t have an imaginary light bulb go off over their head at some point this past weekend. It would seem to be a no-brainer that a well-done reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street could potentially kick as much box office ass as Pennywise and the Losers’ Club are right about now, as well as further solidify New Line’s status as The House Where Horror Icons Flourish.
And New Line sure could take a few notes from their own IT, if they choose to put the same amount of effort into making Freddy Krueger a dominant force of terror once more. Maybe the most impressive thing IT accomplished is creating a new Pennywise who has already become an icon in a completely new, standalone way. Muschietti’s IT has proven that you indeed can reinvent an iconic movie monster for a whole new generation without simply recreating the past, which would be a smart way to approach Freddy’s inevitable revival.
As for how exactly a new Elm Street movie could be executed, well, that ball is entirely in New Line’s court. But if they’re as unafraid to spend money and as committed to making a truly scary film as they were with IT, then I don’t see why New Line couldn’t enjoy the same level of success with a new take on Wes Craven’s dream demon.
Now is the time, New Line. And we’re hungrier than ever.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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