On January 29, 2008, Variety announced that Plantinum Dunes will be remaking the original A Nightmare on Elm Street:
Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form have been set by New Line to relaunch the movie series centered on the iconic killer, who haunts the dreams of teenagers and kills them in their sleep.
The trio will create a new franchise based on Wes Craven's 1984 film "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
Originally played by Robert Englund, the Krueger character haunted nine films and two TV series in what was New Line's most lucrative franchise until "The Lord of the Rings."
Deal comes as Bay, Fuller and Form ready an early May start for "Friday the 13th," New Line's relaunch of another iconic baddie, Jason Voorhees. Marcus Nispel will direct from a script by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift ("Freddy vs. Jason").
Both franchises will be given a complete overhaul, just as Platinum Dunes did with the Nispel-directed "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." New Line won't hire a writer on "Nightmare" until the writers strike ends.
This press release was later followed up by Yahoo:
New Line is in talks with horror production company Platinum Dunes to re-launch the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie series, the franchise that helped establish the studio.
The first "Nightmare" movie was made by Wes Craven and released in 1984. The runaway success of the film spawned a slew of sequels and created one of the most popular villains in screen history, Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund.
The film centered on Krueger, a serial child killer murdered by angry parents, who returns with a burned face and a razor glove to terrorize teens in their dreams.
A screenwriter will be hired once the Writers Guild of America strike ends. The producers - Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form - are hoping to focus part of the new movie on Krueger's backstory.
Platinum Dunes is prepping another re-launch, "Friday the 13th," which will be directed by Marcus Nispel for New Line, for whom it remade "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and its sequel.
Afterward, various other sources began reporting on the new remake.
Speculation has also been running rampant on whether Robert Englund will reprise the Freddy Krueger role. So far, nothing official has been announced, though Shock Till You Drop reported that:
"A number of industry sources recently phoned in to shed some light on the early discussions going on behind-the-scenes regarding "Nightmare"...and none of them include Englund starring as Krueger."
On July 22, 2008, Hollywood Reporter published an article announcing the film's scriptwriter:
"The Warner Bros. division has hired veteran scribe Wesley Strick to pen the relaunch of the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series, the franchise that helped establish New Line into a movie player in the mid-1980s."
Keep checking this space, or the news blog, for the latest updates concerning the new film.
