Elijah Wood Teases the Nightmare on Elm Street Movie He’d Want to Produce

Actor Elijah Wood has a long history in genre film in front of the camera, recently developing projects behind the scenes as a producer with SpectreVision, and he recently detailed what he’d like to see in a new A Nightmare on Elm Street film if SpectreVision had the opportunity to develop the film. Sadly, these details are nothing more than wishful thinking, as there are currently no announced plans for a new entry in the series moving forward anytime soon, but with Wes Craven’s estate recently earning back the rights to the franchise, these plans could be exciting enough to earn the studio the opportunity to develop the project.

“You can’t just reboot it…you can’t tell the same story over again,” Wood shared with Bloody Disgusting‘s The Boo Crew podcast. “It’s already been done. You can’t do an origin story with Freddy Krueger again; that’s already been done twice. You almost have to let Freddy go and move into a different direction. I think you bring Freddy along for the ride initially, but you have to go somewhere else with it because it’s such well-trodden ground.”

After the original 1984 film became a success, a majority of the sequels just featured storylines of the killer invading new victims’ dreams, leading to his ultimate defeat, only to appear in a new sequel. The deviations from that structure were New Nightmare, in which the concept of Krueger left the small screen and invaded actress Heather Langenkamp’s actual life, and Freddy vs. Jason, in which Krueger went up against Friday the 13th‘s Jason Voorhees. The last film in the series was a 2010 reboot, which saw Jackie Earle Haley take on the role of Freddy from Robert Englund.

Wood admitted that, while moving on from Freddy would be a necessity, he’d hope that Englund could appear in some capacity, if only to serve as a passing of the torch.

“I think [Englund] has to be [in it]. I think you have to,” Wood admitted. “To honor that series. To honor that character. To honor [Wes] Craven. I think you have to do that, and then you can express beyond that. He said he wants to do one last film as well.”

With it being 10 years since the last A Nightmare on Elm Street, seeing the franchise move forward in any direction would surely excite fans. Stay tuned for details on the franchise’s possible future.

Would you like to see the series move on from Freddy? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!