Great news for fans of rock piles and snot-nosed scares, because Lionsgate and Blumhouse have teamed up to take us back into the Black Hills of Burkittsville for a reimagining of 1999 horror-classic The Blair Witch Project.
The project was announced today at CinemaCon by Adam Fogelson, chair of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, and Jason Blum, founder and CEO of Blumhouse.
Fogelson said “We are thrilled to kick this partnership off with a new vision for Blair Witch that will reintroduce this horror classic for a new generation”, while Blum added “I’m very grateful to Adam and the team at Lionsgate for letting us play in their sandbox. I’m a huge admirer of The Blair Witch Project, which brought the idea of found footage horror to mainstream audiences and became a true cultural phenomenon”.
The game-changing The Blair Witch Project, from directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez took the world by storm upon its release, with the low-budget, original found-footage horror becoming one of the most successful independent movies of all time when it grossed almost $250 million at the worldwide box-office.
The film generated an entire media franchise, including books, comics, games and more, and was followed by the rather terrible 2000 cash-in sequel Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. The poor reception to Book of Shadows scuppered plans for a prequel that explored the origins of the Blair Witch legend, and the franchise was left standing in the corner until Lionsgate and Godzilla x Kong director Adam Wingard dropped a covert sequel Blair Witch in 2016.
Let us know whether you’re excited to hike back into the woods in search of The Blair Witch by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…