In the last 15 years alone, we’ve seen both Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre get remade, sequelized, rebooted, and awarded legacy continuations, but a fellow titan of the genre has been forced to sit idly by and gather dust. No, we’re not talking about Friday the 13th because everyone is well aware of the legal uncertainty, but A Nightmare on Elm Street.
It’s been a dozen years since audiences last saw Freddy Krueger, and almost 20 since Robert Englund was last buried under the prosthetics for a feature film. To make things even more bizarre, the Samuel Bayer-directed remake and crossover caper Freddy vs. Jason remain the two highest-grossing entries in the entire Elm Street saga, and yet nobody’s taken the plunge for more.
Redditors remain perplexed, baffled, and genuinely surprised that the razor-gloved menace remains absent from the big screen when almost every single one of his contemporaries has been given at least one fresh coat of paint in the interim, but the most salient point to be made in the comments and replies is that the middling response to Jackie Earl Haley’s portrayal made it clear that a lot of people aren’t anywhere near as interested in the property if Englund isn’t involved.
Based on his recent cameo appearance in Stranger Things, he’s definitely still capable of giving viewers the creeps, so perhaps he could be enticed back for one more round if the story was strong enough. The estate of late creator Wes Craven has been inviting pitches for a while already, but as of yet there hasn’t been any real movement on A Nightmare on Elm Street being rejuvenated besides the intermittent rumor or two.
