23 years after the film first left audiences across the globe in need of resuscitation, Lionsgate is said to be considering a franchise revamp of The Blair Witch Project.
One of the most iconic horrors of the last half-century, 1999's The Blair Witch Project kick-started the ever-creepy found-footage genre and redefined movie marketing strategies while it was at it.
Grainy, hand-held videotaping aside, most terrifying of all about The Blair Witch Project was that it was promoted as being real-life footage left behind by missing film students, meaning 90s audiences thought what they were witnessing in cinemas was 100% real.
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What’s more, the hair-raising flick was filmed on a budget of around $20,000 but recouped approximately $250,000,000.
As is often the way, later Blair Witch reboots were less successful, with both 2000’s Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 and 2016’s Blair Witch being panned by critics.
The news of the franchise’s reboot was first reported by The Ankler, with Jeff Sneider calling upon Blair Witch fans to ‘start prepping their pitches’.
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Sneider tweeted on Monday: “EXCLUSIVE: Start prepping those pitches, genre scribes, because it sounds like Lionsgate is ready to venture back into the woods again for another BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, since good IP is never truly dead in the Streaming Age…”
The Blair Witch Project directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez revealed in 2020 that they hadn’t been consulted by Lionsgate on any of the reboots, but would love ‘another stab’ at the franchise.
Speaking on Bloody Disgusting’s The Boo Crew Podcast, Myrick said: “[Lionsgate hasn’t] been too interested in our input, which is sort of ironic. But whenever [they’re] ready, we’re hanging out – if you want us to come back in and take a stab at it.”
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Speaking to NME in 2019 to mark The Blair Witch Project’s 20th anniversary, Myrick even said himself and Sanchez wrote a sequel script for Lionsgate, noting that the screenplay ‘didn’t spark’ with the studio.
Myrick told the outlet: “We had tonnes of ideas [for a sequel]. We pitched them to Lionsgate. We even wrote a sequel script.
“Just for whatever reason, it didn’t spark with the studio and they went in another direction with it. But you know, we’re still holding out hope that they’ll come back to the original guys and maybe entertain one of our ideas.”
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Topics: Film and TV, Entertainment
Aisha Nozari