A Nightmare on Elm Street: two competing reboots are happening

Let’s have a look at the latest twist in the never-ending saga of A Nightmare on Elm Street, where it seems Hollywood’s determined to squeeze yet more life from Freddy’s battered stripy jumper. If you thought we’d settled the score with that last 2010 reboot (remember Jackie Earle Haley’s turn as Freddy? Neither do I, honestly), well, brace yourself: there are now two competing reboots in active development, each charging forward from different studios like a pair of sleep-deprived horror fans playing chicken with a copyright lawyer.

An ‘80s Horror Arms Race

If you’re a fan of horror, especially the big screen monsters, you’ve probably noticed how the classic Universal Monsters from the ‘30s and ‘40s set the bar for on-screen ghouls — Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man, you know the drill. Then things properly kicked off again in the ‘80s, that absolute golden era for horror icons with Jason popping out about every nine months in Friday the 13th, Michael Myers polishing his knife for another round of Halloween sequels, and a load of new nasties like Chucky and Pinhead muscle their way in. But if we’re talking supernatural terrors, Freddy Krueger is still king of the nightmare factory — the baddie you really didn’t want to bump into when drifting off to sleep.

Freddy, played by Robert Englund, first haunted our dreams in 1984’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street and proceeded to torment a whole generation over a long parade of sequels. Then, in 2010, we got a reboot with Jackie Earle Haley in the claw glove. That flick was meant to give new life to the franchise, but things have been oddly quiet since then. Not any more.

A Nightmare on Elm Street launched in 1984 and became one of the most enduring horror franchises, with its last film released in 2010.

Two Reboots, One Wobbly Franchise

Here’s where things get nice and complicated. According to reports (and a bit of a rare industry scuffle), both Paramount and Warner Bros. are developing their own takes on bringing Freddy back from the dead (again). These aren’t two halves of the same story, like we saw with those IT films — they’re entirely different adaptations, each meant to stand on their own, like siblings who refuse to share the toys.

• Paramount has snapped up the rights to the original Elm Street screenplay and is cooking up its own reboot under their “Paramount Primal” label. That’d mean going right back to the start.
• Warner Bros. has drafted in Lee Cronin (the bloke behind Evil Dead Rise) to helm a rival reboot — this version wouldn’t limit itself to just the first story, so expect a full dive into Freddy’s deep well of sequels and lore.

Now, you might wonder how both these projects can exist at once. Here’s the daft bit: Paramount reportedly only has the rights for a domestic (U.S.) release, while Warner Bros. controls the international play. And, because nothing in Hollywood is simple, we’re in the middle of Paramount reportedly trying to buy Warner Bros. outright. If that takeover went through nice and smooth, it wouldn’t matter which version got made first, as they’d both end up in the same company’s lap. But because the buyout is currently stuck in delays, we’ve got both studios now scrambling to get their projects in front of the cameras before the business side sorts itself out. The first one to start production might just win the Freddy arms race, merger or not.

As it stands, the only certainty is that we’ll soon see duelling Freddy Kruegers looming over the future of horror, and whether either actually makes it to our screens before the suits finally sort their paperwork is anyone’s guess.