Two months after the U.S. rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street reverted back to Wes Craven’s estate, it looks like the estate has begun fielding ideas to bring back Freddy Krueger & has been taking pitches on another take on the iconic horror franchise.
The exact plans of the estate are unknown & there are no financial or distribution deals in place but “Bloody Disgusting” reports that they are looking for both feature film pitches and also concepts for a possible HBO Max series. Again, this is all early but since the franchise is back in the right hands, this is a solid start to resurrect one of the horror greats.
It’s interesting that all three of the horror heavyweights (Halloween, Friday the 13th, & Nightmare) have all been in varying degrees of legal unrest. Halloween had to escape Dimension Films into the welcoming arms of Blumhouse. Friday the 13th is still fighting it out between writer Victor Miller & director Sean S. Cunningham so who knows when Jason will don his hockey mask again. The Nightmare situation was less complicated since Craven created Freddy Krueger and wrote the original screenplay for the New Line Cinema-produced/released A Nightmare on Elm Street. That means Wes Craven’s estate is the sole owner of the U.S. rights to Freddy and NOES, while New Line Cinema continues to own the international rights. The good news here is there is nothing holding the estate back from bringing A Nightmare on Elm Street back.
The last time Freddy was on the big screen was in the A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot back in 2010. The film was financially successful enough but was met with negative reviews from critics and fans alike.
