‘A Nightmare On Elm Street’ – Warner Bros. Ends Development In Favor Of Paramount

Get this, at one point, Warner Bros. AND Paramount Pictures were both working on A Nightmare On Elm Street films. Warner with certain rights and Paramount with rights to the original screenplay from the Craven estate. Well, thanks to the merger between WB and Paramount, we’re not getting two films. We’re only getting one.

According to Dread Central, the Warner Bros. film is now dead and buried. Paramount Primal is now the only company developing a new Elm Street film. Before the merger, the two companies were racing to get a movie done before the other. It was so far in development for WB that they had Lee Cronin eyed to write, direct, and produce the film. They even had a plan to beat Paramount into production.

Meanwhile, Paramount announced a new deal for the rights to the first screenplay from Wes Craven in July. Iya Labunka, Jonathan Craven, and attorney Marc Toberoff are producing, with Paramount Primal’s J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules executive producing. This was a huge deal at the time because the Craven estate is very particular about who they work with. We all want to keep on the Elm Street legacy and they want to make sure its in the right hands.

The merger happened and now they basically had two competing movies under the same roof.

Some Other News About Paramount’s A Nightmare On Elm Street

Dread Central continues on with a bit of news about what exactly Paramount can and can’t do with the rights to the first screenplay from Wes Craven. They used the term “horseshit” about rumors that Paramount has to make a word-for-word or shot-for-shot remake of the first film.

They might have the 1984 screenplay to draw inspiration from but that doesn’t mean that they have to only use that scene-for-scene. It gives them plenty of room to do something different. And especially after the 2010 remake, we probably want something different, rather than the same movie remade for a second time.

What we don’t know, however, is how much they’re going to take from that original screenplay and what they’ll add, if anything. There aren’t any writers or directors currently attached to the project. That means there are no plot details or anything that we can report on at the moment.

I think the one thing we can all agree on as A Nightmare On Elm Street fans is that we want Freddy to return to our screens. It’s been 16+ years now and we haven’t had a peep about the man in the red and green sweater. Two films would have been legendary, but rushing the entire thing might not have made for a good movie. So let’s hope that Paramount Primal can do the right thing and give fans what they want.

As for possible directors, the person behind the movie is likely going to drive the tone and feel. They need to knock this part out of the park. Otherwise, we could end up with something that is as disappointing as that remake.

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Source: Dread Central