Writer Eric Heisserer has done pretty well for himself in recent years, having penned the scripts for such popular genre works as Arrival and Bird Box. In fact, the scribe’s recent success might be all the more impressive given that his feature debut was a work as widely rejected as 2010‘s A Nightmare on Elm Street, and in a recent series of Twitter posts, Heisserer lamented how his script for the horror remake suffered heavy tampering.
Samuel Bayer’s critically panned slasher flick toys with the idea that Freddy Krueger, played this time by Jackie Earle Haley, may have been wrongly accused of molesting children, and is now coming back from the dead to seek vengeance. But while the film ultimately reveals the villain to be guilty, this wasn’t what Heisserer initially had in mind.
“There was an iteration of the movie at one point where he remained innocent and vengeful, but then it flipped back,” he said.
It’s difficult to say whether the film would’ve got a better or worse reception if it had kept Freddy innocent. After all, movie remakes can often be a lose-lose affair: change too little and your work is considered redundant and uninspired; but change too much and you’re accused of missing the point of the original.
Regardless, after pointing out a few more ways in which his screenplay was meddled with, Heisserer concluded that there’s still potential for a worthwhile Elm Street remake, so long as the team handles the material correctly.
“There are a thousand reasons why things like this happen, but with the right team in place, you have collaborators who plus up the project versus make it a different thing than what it was originally designed to be. All of this a really long-winded way of saying: Yes, this should be remade. I’m not advocating my script from back then, but just have it made by people who have a love and expertise of not just NOES but horror. There are some amazing voices today for it.”
It seems almost inevitable that Freddy will return to our screens somewhere down the line, whether it’s Robert Englund reprising his role, or someone new facing the uphill battle of filling his shoes. But if recent reports are anything to go by, then New Line is currently focused on other, Conjuring-related matters, and until that particular horror bubble bursts, it looks like A Nightmare on Elm Street could remain on ice for a few more years.
