Mike Flanagan has forged a strong horror path on television – with his Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and The Midnight Club, which Netflix dubbed the Flanaverse. But, he started out as a horror movie director with the likes of Oculus, Hush, Before I Wake, Ouija: Origin of Evil (all of which were critically well-received), and most notably – The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep.
While Flanagan has mostly made the move to TV horror series since 2018, that doesn’t mean that he’s not on the look out for hot horror properties to turn into movies. In terms of legacy franchises – which as we know are currently all the rage to be revived and rebooted – Flanagan’s heart lies with Freddy Krueger.
Speaking to the Script Apart podcast, Flanagan said; “One of the ones that has been on my list forever is Nightmare on Elm Street. Boy, that would be fun. I have a whole take for it that I worked out a couple of years ago.”
Flanagan continued; “My understanding is the rights situation for that title is so fraught, no one knows who controls it really. No one knows who to pitch. So I keep telling my agents, like, ‘Send me in on A Nightmare on Elm Street.’ And they’re like, ‘We’d love to. We have no idea who you should talk to.’ I’ve spent almost a year of my life with Heather Langenkamp, and we would talk about it. And it’s like, nobody knows what to do. But one of these days, perhaps.”
Many classic horror movies from the 70s to the 90s have been getting legacy sequels recently – we’ve had the new Halloween movie trilogy, a Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot, and of course the new Scream sequels. There’s also a new Friday the 13th movie on the way. With Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees coming back – it just doesn’t sit right that Freddy Krueger (arguably the best villain of the three) should stay buried.
While we wait to see if Flanagan ever manages to get the rights to Nightmare on Elm Street, check out our guide to the best slasher movies.