Robert Englund, the horror legend best known for playing the character Freddy Krueger, has shared what he believes to be the reason why we haven’t seen a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie in 15 years. The last we saw of Freddy was in the ill-fated 2010 franchise reboot (Freddy’s return in The Goldbergs was great, but we’re not counting that), and that’s a memory many would prefer to erase. Since then, the franchise has hit a complete halt.
Talking to IndieWire on the 40th anniversary of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Englund revealed his theories as to why the Freddy universe has remained dormant while New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. have decided to revive other franchises, like Final Destination. According to Englund, the ridiculous reason Krueger hasn’t returned is there are simply too many people involved.
“There are so many people involved who have a piece of the action. When Wes passed away, he left an awful lot of rights to his estate. He has many, many rights that he worked out between character titles and names and plot and things like that. New Line Cinema obviously has a big hand in it. And much of that was surrendered to Ted Turner, then went to Warner Bros. So Warner Bros. has a huge piece of it. I know Michael Bay had been involved with some interest and also Blumhouse.”
Englund Shares His Vision to Revive the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ Franchise (And It Sounds Awesome)
One of the most frequent questions about the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and what to do for its revival, regards whether they should make another sequel or just reboot the entire thing. In 2010, Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller tried the latter with a new Nightmare starring Rooney Mara and Jackie Earle Haley as Nancy and Freddy, respectively. The result was far from successful.
Englund addressed the 2010 reboot, saying, “I think the remake was premature. I love a lot of the actors in the movie, so I’m not going to say anything bad about it, I just think the timing was off.” The actor also offered his own theory about what not to do, what to reboot, and what to try as something completely new. He has a pretty interesting idea:
“I know, eventually, they are going to reboot the franchise. And I think they can do part 2 as a standalone and really get into the subtext of Freddy manipulating Jesse and playing with his subconscious.
“My theory would be, you don’t go near Nightmare 1 again. You either do a prequel or start with Dream Warriors, which is the biggest success in the franchise and a fan favorite. So I would do 3, 4, and 5. I’d reboot them. And then, to end the franchise, I would do the prequel.”