A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET Reboot Moving Forward at Paramount as Competing Freddy Krueger Movie Gets Killed

Freddy Krueger has been missing from the big screen for a long time, but Hollywood is finally bringing the dream-stalking horror icon back. Well, sort of. One A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot is moving forward at Paramount Pictures, while another planned movie has apparently been sent straight to the Hollywood graveyard.

According to Dread Central, Paramount is moving ahead with its new take on Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street through its Paramount Primal banner, with the filmmaker's estate backing the project. The movie will be based on Craven's original screenplay, which is an interesting direction for a franchise that has been collecting dust for more than 15 years.

There was previously another Nightmare on Elm Street movie in development at New Line Cinema, with Lee Cronin, the filmmaker behind Evil Dead Rise, reportedly involved. That project was being developed separately from Paramount's reboot, but it now appears to be dead.

The situation comes down to Hollywood's favorite nightmare: franchise rights. Paramount controlled the rights to Craven's original screenplay, while Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema held the international rights to the franchise.

That created an unusual situation where two studios were developing competing Freddy Krueger movies, potentially racing to get their versions into theaters first.

With Warner Bros. and Paramount merging, that competition has apparently come to an end. Cronin's project has been abandoned, leaving Paramount Primal's reboot as the only version currently moving forward.

It's a shame because Cronin could have brought something pretty nasty to the franchise. His work on Evil Dead Rise proved he knows how to deliver brutal, inventive horror, and seeing what he could have done with Freddy would have been a hell of a lot of fun.

Of course, Freddy has been stuck in Hollywood development hell before. The original A Nightmare on Elm Street turned Robert Englund's Freddy Krueger into one of horror's biggest pop culture icons. Throughout the '80s and '90s, the franchise became a massive success, with Freddy showing up everywhere from movie theaters to merchandise. He was a horror villain who somehow became a celebrity.

The franchise last attempted a comeback in 2010, when Jackie Earle Haley replaced Englund as Freddy in a remake of Craven's original film. While the movie made money, critics weren't particularly impressed, and audiences never got a sequel. Craven's death in 2015 added another complication to efforts to bring the franchise back.

Rights disputes have also caused plenty of headaches for other horror franchises. Friday the 13th famously spent years tangled in a legal battle involving director Sean S. Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller, preventing new films from moving forward.

That mess eventually led to the development of the prequel series Crystal Lake, which initially navigated restrictions involving the Friday the 13th title and Jason Voorhees' iconic appearance.

Had Paramount and New Line continued developing separate Nightmare on Elm Street movies, similar restrictions could have complicated what each studio was allowed to use. Thankfully, it looks like Freddy won't have to deal with two competing versions of himself.

As for Paramount's reboot, there's still a lot we don't know. No writer or director has officially been attached, and there's no word on who might take over the role of Freddy Krueger.

The decision to return to Craven's original screenplay is intriguing, though. The 1984 film worked because Freddy was genuinely terrifying, a sadistic killer who could murder teenagers in their dreams. The character eventually became more of a wisecracking horror celebrity, which was entertaining, but the original Freddy was a completely different monster.

For now, the good news is that a new A Nightmare on Elm Street movie is moving forward, even if Hollywood had to kill another version to make it happen.

Are you excited about Paramount bringing Freddy Krueger back, or would you rather have seen what Lee Cronin could have done with the franchise?