Movies
It’s Up to Lionsgate to Make ‘Blair Witch’ Sequel…
Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick’s 1999 indie The Blair Witch Project was a game changer. It’s sequel, while disappointing at the time of release, has aged like fine wine.
While the groundbreaking first film was the first found-footage of its kind, the 2000 Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 went back to a traditional approach.
The duo have been talking trilogy since the release of Book of Shadows, although nothing has ever come into fruition.
With the recent popularity of found-footage, it’s sort of a shocker that a third film has never gone into production.
Lionsgate, who owns the rights to the franchise (through acquiring Artisan Entertainment), recently acquired Sanchez’ Exists out of the SXSW Film Festival. Reuniting Sanchez with Lionsgate provides hope that this franchise will live on, although it’s up to Lionsgate to pull the trigger.
“You know, Lionsgate owns the property, so it’s obviously up to them right now,” Sanchez tells Movies.com. “We’ve been talking to them for the past four or five years about doing it, but there’s nothing really in the works right now with us. But I think you’re right and maybe just being back at Lionsgate will help move things forward on another Blair Witch movie.”
Responding to talk about it being found-footage, Sanchez ends that notion: “That’s an observation I’ve talked to a lot of people about. There were other found-footage movies, but when Cloverfield did its thing there were a whole bunch of them afterward. I think a lot of people, including us, just didn’t know. We never imagined doing another Blair Witch found-footage movie. Our plan for the sequel is definitely not doing a found-footage movie. It took a while for people to just figure out what Blair had done; I’m not sure why. The film was so experimental and kind of came out of nowhere so people didn’t know what to think of it and weren’t sure if that style could be repeated.”
The Blair Witch Project went on to make $250M worldwide at the box office.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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