Blair Witch Crew Member Wants Blumhouse To Contact Original Creative Team For New Movie

Summary

• The Blair Witch Project
  production designer Ben Rock criticizes Lionsgate and Blumhouse for not including the original creators in the
  Blair Witch
  reboot, and hopes for careful handling.
• Rock emphasizes the importance of involving the original creators in the reboot to connect with audiences and avoid repeating past failures.
• Overall, Rock describes it as bittersweet, and he isn’t the only one to speak out against the reboot.

The Blair Witch Project production designer Ben Rock calls out Lionsgate and Blumhouse for their lack of communication with the original movie’s creative team as they develop a reboot of the influential found-footage horror movie. Released in 1999, the original movie is a harrowing account of an amateur documentary team’s encounter with unfathomable, indescribable horror that aimed to leave audiences unsure if what they saw was true. The Blair Witch Project then spawned a franchise, with the most recent development being Lionsgate and Blumhouse’s surprise reboot.

With the new Blair Witch reboot facing blacklash, Rock has now called out both studios for not speaking with the franchise’s creators. Speaking to THR, Rock stated that given the reputation of subsequent Blair Witch movies, the original crew should have some involvement in the new movie. Check out Rock’s response below:

It’s bittersweet, honestly. I do think that what has happened twice now was that the original creators were overlooked, and other people were brought in, all of whom were good. But neither one of the sequels connected with audiences the way they wanted it to connect. And so it might at least be worth talking to some of the original creators.

I understand that you can be too close to something, and maybe an outside perspective is helpful, but in aggregate, it didn’t work. They didn’t make the hit that they wanted to make. I’m hoping Blumhouse isn’t like, ‘Hey, let’s go reboot this without talking to anybody [from the first one].’ But they haven’t talked to any of us.

I don’t know how you outdo what we did. But I care about the franchise, so whoever does it, I hope they handle it with care.

This is a developing story…

The Blair Witch Project
is available to stream on Freevee.

Source: THR