FEAR STREET Trilogy Director Leigh Janiak Hopes to Create a Marvel-Style Horror Cinematic Universe
I enjoyed the hell out of Netflix’s Fear Street horror trilogy, and I’m hoping that we get to see more of these films, which are based on the classic R.L. Stine YA horror novels. Director Leigh Janiak did some crazy fun things with this stor,y and I love how it doesn’t shy away from going super dark and bloody. These films certainly earned their R-ratings!
Well, the director of the films is hoping this is the start of building a Marvel-style horror cinematic universe. During a recent interview with IndieWire, Janiak talked about her ambitions for the Fear Street franchise, saying:
“One of the exciting things about ‘Fear Street’ is the fact that the universe is big and allows for a lot of space. One of the things that I talked about before I was hired was that we have a potential here to create a horror Marvel [Cinematic Universe], where you can have slasher killers from lots of different eras. You have the canon of our main mythology that’s built around the fact that the devil lives in Shadyside, so there’s also room for everything else.”
I like the idea of expanding the universe of Fear Street! There is one other horror cinematic universe that is being built with James Wan’s The Conjuring franchise. That might be a better comparison instead of Marvel, but Marvel is the example of a cinematic universe that everyone likes to talk about. Janiak went on to say:
“I think that my hope is that audiences like it enough that we can start building out [more], we can think about what another trilogy would be, what stand-alones would be, what TV would be. I don’t even think about it like TV or movies exactly anymore. That’s the great thing about Netflix and about what ‘Fear Street’ is, which is kind of a hybrid new thing. I’m excited about the possibility of what else can happen.”
After watching the Fear Street trilogy, I can see the potential of what Janiak is talking about. There are a lot of stories and characters throughout different eras of time to play with here. There’s a great mythology that’s been set up with these first three films, and the creative team made sure to keep the door open for more films with the post-credits scene.
Janiak teases one future story she’d want to bring to life sharing, “I really started getting excited about a ’50s slasher movie, which I haven’t really seen and what that means. It’s just cool to think about the different eras and what’s possible as a horror fan.”
We’ll just have to wait to see what Netflix thinks and if this is a franchise that they want to keep building on. Would you like to see more Fear Street movies?