A reboot of The Blair Witch Project franchise is reportedly being considered by Lionsgate. Some 23 years after the arrival of the original movie in the three-film franchise, the struggle to repeat its success has been an arduous one. This is likely due to the fact that upon its 1999 release, The Blair Witch Project was unlike anything anyone had seen before and its status as a pop culture smash helped give rise to the found-footage horror genre.
With its grainy handheld black and white footage and masterful marketing campaign, The Blair Witch Project took the possibilities of horror into new directions. Originally promoted as real-life footage unearthed from the Black Hills after a group of young filmmakers reportedly went missing there, the film utilized word of mouth and a cryptic website to build anticipation for its release. Seeking to scare audiences by obscuring or altogether avoiding any direct imagery of the antagonist, The Blair Witch Project created a tremendous amount of intrigue that proved a big budget wasn’t needed to find success. However, when the sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, arrived in 2000, everything about the first film that made it a hit seemed to have been jettisoned. Needless to say, it fared poorly, as did an attempted 2016 reboot known simply as Blair Witch.
While horror fans seemed to have moved on to other pursuits, the Blair Witch franchise has continued to look for ways to reclaim its status as one of horror filmmaking’s greatest achievements. It’s a daunting challenge, to say the least, but now it looks as though a reboot of the entire franchise is being considered. As per a report from The Ankler, Lionsgate is getting set to relaunch the IP, though at present there’s no confirmation of exactly what this would look like. Presumably tired of sequels that simply don’t work, it looks like Lionsgate is willing to take the entire concept back to the drawing board.
Officially, the 2016 Blair Witch was released as a sequel to the original film, leaving Book of Shadows relegated to let’s-just-pretend-it-didn’t-happen status. That was an understandable approach given the film’s disappointing attempt at continuing with what the original film delivered. Unfortunately, when Blair Witch also failed to excite audiences, it was clear that something needed to change in a big way if the franchise was to continue at all. Rebooting the first film seems like the perfect answer, but it’s also no guarantee. Should the attempt fail, it’s hard to say how the franchise could find its way back.
It’s also worth pointing out that a big part of why The Blair With Project succeeded so resoundingly is because it was something that audiences truly hadn’t experienced before. The film arrived during a time in which social media was still almost a decade off, making audiences a little more naïve to the idea of found footage. Today the concept is a genre within itself and the zeitgeist of 1999 is simply not going to be repeated, no matter how badly the franchise might want it to be. Still, if a decent take on the premise can accurately follow in the stripped-down footsteps of the original, there’s a chance something new could work.
Source: The Ankler