Blumhouse & Lionsgate Working on a New “Blair Witch” Movie
We’re headed back into the freakiest forest of them all, courtesy of Blumhouse and Lionsgate, who are partnering for a new Blair Witch Project movie.
The two studios have struck a deal in which Blumhouse will be reimagining multiple horror films for Lionsgate after the success of their joint venture, director Jeff Wadlow’s horror film Imaginary, which has scared up $38.2 million since its March 8 release.
Writer/director duo Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s original The Blair Witch Project was a legitimate phenomenon. Released in 1999 and made for $35,000 (with an additional $200-500k in post-production), their fictional documentary about three film students investigating the local Blair Witch legend in the Maryland woods went on to gross an astonishing $249 million globally. The Blair Witch Project was a legitimately unsettling and ingeniously crafted film that benefited mightily from introducing audiences to the found footage concept and kickstarting the craze for that approach. It also led to two sequels, in 2001 and another in 2016. Producer Roy Lee, who worked on director Adam Wingard’s 2016 sequel Blair Witch, is back to produce the new film.
“I have been incredibly fortunate to work with Jason many times over the years,” said Lionsgate Film Chairman Adam Fogelson about Jason Blum. “We forged a strong relationship on The Purge when I was at Universal, and we launched STX with his film The Gift. There is no one better at this genre than the team at Blumhouse. We are thrilled to kick this partnership off with a new vision for Blair Witch that will reintroduce this horror classic for a new generation.”
Blum praised the original Blair Witch for lighting the way through the darkness for his own found footage juggernaut.
“I don’t think there would have been a Paranormal Activity had there not first been a Blair Witch, so this feels like a truly special opportunity, and I’m excited to see where it leads.”
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Featured image: Heather Donahue in a scene from the film ‘The Blair Witch Project’, 1999. (Photo by Lauren Film/Getty Images)
