Following reports that Paramount Pictures has purchased the rights to the original Wes Craven screenplay for the 1984 horror classic, Nightmare on Elm Street, and that there will be a remake, horror fans have taken to social media platforms to share their thoughts.
The news emphasises how the deal comes from copyright laws allowing writers to reclaim rights from initial studios after 35 years from publication, and now the “Craven estate regained the rights to the screenplay“. The Elm Street rights were previously held by New Line Cinema and Warner Bros., spawning a franchise after the first film centred on the vengeful ghost of a murdered school janitor called Freddy Krueger, who was murdered by the parents of the school kids he attacked and now haunts those same kids, now teenagers, in their dreams.
“We look forward to bringing the world of Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street to a new and completely engaged generation of fans,” Iya Labunka, Craven’s widow, stated upon the news of a remake. “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 a dark theatre – around the campfire of today – as the next chapter of the Nightmare story unfolds.”
Labunka will reportedly produce alongside Craven’s son, Jonathon Craven, and Marc Toberoff. Paramount’s J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, leaders of the new Paramount label, Paramount Primal, are also attached to the project.
However, horror buffs aren’t all pleased about the reboot news. Some online responses are harshly critical, such as one user quoting the news: “we’ve reached a point where we can’t even write new screenplays.” Another shared, “I want Freddy back but…A REMAKE AGAIN? NOOOO,” meanwhile another user asked “what’s the point?” when mentioning it’s the “same script” and so “an unnecessary remake.”
Such responses stem from ongoing news that countless other classic horror stories are being reworked and updated, from new horror filmmaker Curry Barker taking on a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre story to Mike Flanagan updating both Carrie and The Mist from the Stephen King archives, as well as adapting The Exorcist once again.
With original horror tales such as Obsession and internet story-inspired Surrealist works such as Backrooms making box office history and generating endless online praise and discourse wedged between this wave of new reboots, the horror genre is undergoing a pivotal and significant new era.
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