Freddy’s Back: Paramount Primal Plans Newer Nightmare

Paranount Pictures has announced a new sub-brand just for horror films called Paramount Primal. No matter what opinion you might have of that name, one thing’s undeniable: they need movies to launch that brand with. Why not bring back one of horror’s most iconic characters?

For the first time in a while, it sounds like a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie could seriously be happening. The franchise was previously owned under New Line, which eventually folded into Warner Bros…and no, the impending merger is not the reason Paramount is the one making this. It’s because after 35 years, authors are allowed to reclaim the rights to their own stories, and the estate of Wes Craven now holds the rights to Freddy Krueger and all that has to do with him. They are free to sign with whatever studio they want, and it was Paramount that came calling.

Craven’s widow Iya Labunka and son Jonathan Craven will serve as producers on the new film along with with Marc Toberoff. Executive producers are J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules for Paramount Primal.

“We look forward to bringing the world of Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street to a new and completely engaged generation of fans,” said Labunka in a statement. “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.”

There are a lot of unanswered questions here, the biggest being “what kind of Freddy are we getting out of this.” Robert Englund, though in his late 70s by now, is still in the acting business, and under all that makeup you wouldn’t be able to see any wrinkles. However, he hasn’t SAID he’d be willing to reprise Freddy again. A remake was produced in 2010 that starred Jackie Earl Haley as the razor-gloved one, but it didn’t really catch on.

Is the comeback of Freddy more than just a dream? We’ll find out in the months to come.