Over the course of the past forty-plus years, the character of Freddy Krueger has become an undeniably iconic character. Over the course of six original A Nightmare on Elm Street installments, one ahead-of-its-time metatextual legacy sequel (1994’s New Nightmare), one monster mash crossover (2003’s Freddy vs. Jason), and one less than well-received remake (2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street), the character haunted the sleep cycles of generations of audiences for decades.
But much like his former sparring partner Jason Voorhees, Freddy has been uncharacteristically quiet for the past several years. Fortunately, it seems as though that long silence is about to be broken at last, as Paramount has recently announced their plans to move forward with a brand-new Nightmare on Elm Street movie, bringing Freddy back for a whole new generation of moviegoers.
Much like its fellow veteran horror franchise, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street has been unexpectedly mired in legal turmoil and rights issues for several years now, all of which has contributed immensely to the lack of further installments. With this new statement released to The Hollywood Reporter, however, Paramount execs are revealing that they have made a deal with the estate of deceased franchise originator Wes Craven.
Craven wrote and directed the seminal 1984 original A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Paramount has brokered a deal with the Craven estate for the rights to that original script. Through these complex legal means, Paramount is now able to adapt a new Nightmare on Elm Street film from the ideas, stories, and characters present in that original screenplay.
As Iya Labunka from the Craven estate says, “We look forward to bringing the world of Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street to a new and completely engaged generation of fans. We know that Wes would have been thrilled to see how horror is taking its long-overdue place in the cultural canon. We can’t wait for all of us to sit together in the dark theater—around the campfire of today—as the next chapter of the Nightmare story unfolds.”
While movement on a new Nightmare film seems to be certain, the specifics of it are very much not. Does the fact that it is going to be an adaptation of Craven’s original screenplay mean it will be a remake of that first film? Not necessarily, but it’s possible, I suppose. Will original Freddy actor Robert Englund be returning? Almost certainly not. He was already replaced in the much-maligned 2010 remake and has spoken in recent years about feeling passionate about the need to pass the mantle if or when another film were to be made.
There was also no word on any filmmakers who might be attached to the project, outside of producers J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margueles, who have previously worked on off-kilter genre successes such as Friendship and Barbarian. Many notable directors, from Mike Flanagan to Lee Cronin, have expressed interest in tackling the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise over the years, and now that it's finally making its inevitable return, it will be immensely interesting to see what creative team assembles both in front of and behind the camera.
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