The original Blair Witch Project team have called news of the upcoming remake “bittersweet”.
Just days ago, it was announced that the seminal film was getting a reboot at CinemaCon. Since the 1999 original, there have been two sequels in 2000 and 2016, making this remake the fourth movie in the series.
Though 2016’s Blair Witch director Roy Lee is slated to return, Ben Rock (original production designer) has claimed that no one from the original film – including co-directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez – were involved in any following movies, adding in comments to The Hollywood Reporter that news of the reboot is “bittersweet”.
“I do think that what has happened twice now was that the original creators were overlooked, and other people were brought in, all of whom were good,” Rock said. “But neither one of the sequels connected with audiences the way they wanted it to connect. And so it might at least be worth talking to some of the original creators.”
Joshua Leonard, one of the original film’s three leads (alongside Heather Donahue and Michael C. Williams), also expressed his frustrations about the reboot in a lengthy Instagram post: “I’m so proud of our little punk-rock movie, and I LOVE the fans who keep the flames burning,” he wrote. “But at this point, it’s 25 years of disrespect from the folks who’ve pocketed the lion’s share (pun intended) of the profits from OUR work, and that feels both icky and classless.”
Original co-producer Mike Monello also shared his thoughts on X/Twitter, saying: “Radical idea: You could try putting this project in the hands of the original team that made the first one. You know, the team that actually has an entire franchise plan to reinvent what a “Blair Witch” movie could be?”
Radical idea: You could try putting this project in the hands of the original team that made the first one. You know, the team that actually has an entire franchise plan to reinvent what a "Blair Witch" movie could be? @jason_blum @Lionsgate @blumhouse https://t.co/V7GLk2ZUzv
— Mike Monello (@mikemonello) April 10, 2024
NME spoke to Myrick for BWP‘s 20th anniversary, where he elaborated on his thoughts of the two follow-up sequels: “Well, it’s pretty common knowledge that we weren’t too enthusiastic about Book Of Shadows, which came hot on the heels of Blair Witch.
“We thought it was made for all the wrong reasons and was just trying to capitalise on the hype of the first film,” he continued. “I’m a big fan of Joe Berlinger, the director of that movie, but I thought he was kind of shoehorned into this situation that was pretty much impossible. That said, in defence of the film, if it hadn’t had the Blair Witch name attached to it, I think it might have been better received. It was so different, stylistically, to the first film, I think it was always going to get beat up…”
Of the 2016 reboot, Myrick said: “We definitely appreciated that they showed a degree of reverence to the first movie. They adhered to the mythology, which was important to us. Simon Barrett, the writer, was a true fan of the first movie. He and Adam Wingard, the director, came to us early on and told us how much they loved our movie. They said they wanted to bring that reverence to their reboot.
“Where I think the movie fell down, it was that it was almost too close to the original movie. It’s a tough thing to recapture. But I liked the design and the feel of it.”
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