The simple fact of the matter is that no horror franchise is ever truly dead, and a good slasher will always return. With revivals of Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the works elsewhere, Paramount Pictures is getting into the game. THR reports the studio has acquired the rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street from the Wes Craven estate, ensuring the return of Freddy Krueger.
The new film is part of the studio’s new genre shingle, Paramount Primal, led by J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules. The duo are producers on Zach Cregger’s Barbarian and the A24 dark comedy, Friendship.
Robert Englund has played Freddy Krueger, a scarred child killer known for preying on his victims in a Hellscape with his signature clawed gloves, since the original movie in 1984. He would reprise the role multiple times over the years, concluding with 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason. The character would get a new actor, Jackie Earle Haley, with the Michael Bay-produced remake in 2010 that turned out to be a dud.
New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. retained the film rights until Craven reclaimed them in 2019. Worldwide, the franchise has earned $490M over nine movies.
At this point, there are no creatives attached to A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s too early for that. But one has to get excited at the possibility of someone like Zach Cregger, Sébastien Vaniček, Curry Barker, or Adrian Chiarella taking a stab at Krueger’s next onslaught.
