A Nightmare On Elm Street is being rebooted after Paramount Pictures agreed a deal with the estate of Wes Craven, the original movie’s director.

The 1984 horror classic starred Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, a profoundly burned child killer who returns from the dead to murder teenagers in their dreams. Craven wrote and directed the original movie, as well as the seventh movie, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.

Englund’s portrayal of Krueger became a pop culture sensation in the ‘80s and ‘90s, appearing in a spin-off series Freddy’s Nightmares as well as making appearances in The Simpsons, Robot Chicken, and blockbuster movie Ready Player One.

There are nine movies in the franchise overall, including 2003’s Freddy Vs Jason, a crossover with the Friday The 13th franchise, and a 2010 reboot which saw Jackie Earle Haley take over the role of Krueger from Englund. Craven died in 2015, and was not consulted on the 2010 remake. However, his widow, Iya Labunka and son, Jonathan Craven, regained the rights to the original film in 2019 and will serve as producers for the new reboot.

Paramount will release the film, based on the original screenplay, under new genre label Paramount Primal. New Line Cinema previously released the films and retain international distribution rights, although Paramount are in the process of buying their parent company, Warner Bros Discovery. Cast and crew details are yet to be announced.

Labunka said in a statement (via Variety): “We look forward to bringing the world of Wes Craven’s Nightmare On Elm Street to a new and completely engaged generation of fans. We know that Wes would have been thrilled to see how horror is taking its long overdue place in the cultural canon. We can’t wait for all of us to sit together in a dark theatre — around the campfire of today — as the next chapter of the Nightmare story unfolds.”

Wes Craven was also the director of the first four Scream movies, which were rebooted in recent years. When the fifth film was released in 2020, star Neve Campbell admitted it was difficult to return to the franchise without the filmmaker.

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