The production designer for The Blair Witch Project has lamented the original team’s lack of involvement with Blumhouse’s upcoming reboot.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Ben Rock states that ”they haven’t talked to any of us” and says, ”It’s bittersweet” that those handling the franchise have consistently left the original team in the cold when making new entries such as Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows and Adam Wingard’s 2016 sequel Blair Witch.
The Blair Witch Project Snub is ’25 Years of Disrespect’
While Rock hopes that Blumhouse will reach out for their input this time, nobody has done so yet.
“I do think that what has happened twice now was that the original creators were overlooked, and other people were brought in, all of whom were good,” said Rock about the last two sequels. “But neither one of the sequels connected with audiences the way they wanted it to connect. And so it might at least be worth talking to some of the original creators.”
There’s been a growing animosity between rights holders Lionsgate and the original Blair Witch team. Joshua Leonard, one of the stars of that film, said, ”At this point, it’s 25 years of disrespect from the folks who’ve pocketed the lion’s share (pun intended) of the profits from OUR work, and that feels both icky and classless.” This was in response to discovering news of the reboot from a friend who shared a media report of it featuring a still of Leonard in The Blair Witch Project despite his lack of involvement.
Rock harbors no ill will towards Blumhouse, but hopes it doesn’t reboot the series without consulting those who launched it to begin with. He remains unsure trying to replicate the original will be a successful venture, saying, “I don’t know how you outdo what we did. But I care about the franchise, so whoever does it, I hope they handle it with care.”
The Blair Witch Project is coming up on the 25th anniversary of its theatrical release this Summer and it still stands as a monumental film in horror history in how it utilized the burgeoning power of the internet to build a myth around the film, blurring the line between reality and fiction.
It still stands as one of the most profitable films of all time, having been made for just $750,000 (including marketing) and ending up as one of the ten highest earners of 1999, impressively keeping company with the likes of The Matrix and The Phantom Menace thanks to a cool haul of nearly $250 million worldwide.
Blumhouse has, in fairness, already worked with people associated with longstanding horror franchises when making a new entry. John Carpenter returned to the Halloween franchise to score Blumhouse’s recent trilogy alongside Daniel Davies, and son Cody Carpenter. It was perhaps a touch looser in integrating past talents into David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer, with original Exorcist star Ellen Burstyn‘s inclusion largely criticized for being meaningless beyond cynically tying it to William Friedkin’s 1973 classic.
The Blair Witch Project revival is set to be the first among several collaborations between Lionsgate and Blumhouse as they seek to bring horror franchises gone by back from the dead.
