Well now, this is interesting. There are potentially two competing movies coming, both A Nightmare On Elm Street. One is from Paramount, and one is from Warner Bros. What? How? Why? Just questions, my liege.
The Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery deal is on pause while many states try some lawfare because an Ellison once said something nice about President Donald J. Trump, and the EU can’t quite figure out what to do other than regulate… again.
As a result, they are rivals with two projects gearing up.
This happened because Paramount Pictures had closed a deal for a new take on the Wes Craven horror classic for their Paramount Primal label. This was with Craven’s estate for the U.S. rights to Craven’s original screenplay for the 1984 first film, rights they had reobtained under copyright law.
The complication is that the previous rights holder, New Line Cinema – part of Warner Bros. Discovery – retains the international rights. So, according to Puck News, Warners is planning their own Freddy Krueger movie. They want Lee Cronin to produce, write, and direct.
Paramount had expected that the deal would be closed in time, so the Warner project would be killed off or merged with theirs. The delay has meant the two movie projects go head-to-head, and Warners is moving at speed.
Paramount has Craven’s widow Iya Labunka and son Jonathan producing alongside Marc Toberoff, J.D. Lifshitz, and Raphael Margules. Warners did approach the Craven estate about their project, but the estate negotiated hard on back-end split so they couldn’t find a deal.
The real complication is that Paramount’s deal restricts their film to a shot-by-shot remake that can only be released in the United States, and has no merchandising opportunity. Warner’s can pretty much do what they want.
We all know what the sensible answer is here, but Hollywood isn’t sensible.
