Robert Englund, best known as Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare On Elm Street series, recently declared that he’s too old to return to the franchise, but has now stated that he would support the making of a prequel focusing on Freddy prior to his mortal death.
The concept of the movies cast him as a child murderer (or going by the reboot, a pedophile) who was acquitted of his crimes due to a minor technicality and subsequently burned to death in vigilante justice by the parents of his victims. Speaking to Syfy Wire, Englund stated:
“I think that the franchise probably deserves a really good prequel. There’s never been an entire movie devoted to Freddy before he was burned and the crimes and getting caught by the police and going on trial and getting away with killing children. We know that he was set free, so to me, the great part in the prequel is gonna be the lawyers, the lawyers that get him off. These ambulance-chasing lawyers (or whatever they are) that get Freddy off and then, of course, the ending would be the vigilante parents burning him. That would be the end of the movie, but I think there’s a great story there somewhere … I think it could sustain 90 minutes.”
Freddy’s backstory was explored at brief points in the original films, revealing him to be the child of a nun who was accidentally locked inside a mental asylum for the criminally insane. The horrific circumstances of his conception cursed him with the moniker “son of a hundred maniacs,” a taunting chant of which plagued his younger years, with his later victims being the children of those who tormented him as a child.
Since the appeal of the Nightmare On Elm Street films is the dream stalker that Freddy became, it’s debatable exactly how interesting horror fans would find what essentially amounts to a courtroom drama. However, in New Nightmare he was meta-fictionally re-imagined as the latest incarnation of an ancient demonic entity that took on various guises throughout the ages, so having this force recognize him as a potential host could bring the supernatural horror element that the movie’s core audience would need in order to be interested in it.
