Jordan Peele’s The People Under The Stairs Reboot Hires Doom Patrol Writer

Over three years after it was announced that Get out and Nope director Jordan Peele was producing a remake of The People Under the Stairs, the horror reboot has gotten a major update. Deadline brings word that Doom Patrol and Night Sky writer Ezra Claytan Daniels has been tapped to write the screenplay for the reboot of The People Under the Stairs. Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions and Universal Studios are collaborating on the new movie, which has Peele and partner Win Rosenfeld serving as producers. No official release date has been set for The People Under the Stairs reboot just yet.

ComicBook.com previously asked for an update on the film from producer Win Rosenfeld about their take on The People Under the Stairs about two years ago. Though he didn’t offer much he did tease a major element of how they’re approaching a reboot: “I think, unfortunately, I’m going to have to leave you guessing. I do love your site and I’m dying to give you guys whatever scoops I can. I can’t give you that one, but just to say, we’re approaching it with the same reverence and love that we approach the original Candyman with and how that will express itself, I think, may be different.”

Written and directed by the late Wes Craven and released in 1991, The People Under the Stairs was less a straight horror movie from the Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street director, but a biting satirical thriller that took on gentrification and capitalism. The movie told the tale of a young black kid facing eviction from his white landlords The Robesons. The youngester breaks into their home and discovers their horrifying secret, their home has a cannibalistic group of people living under the stairs and in the walls that are forced to survive on scraps while The Robesons live large. In a complete lack of subtlety the film literally ends with a call for wealth redistribution.

Craven sadly passed away in 2015, with the upcoming remake of People Under the Stairs set to be the first of his films to be rebooted following his death. Previous Craven movies like The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left, and A Nightmare on Elm Street were all rebooted while the director was still living but with mixed results. The Scream franchise has also continued after Craven’s death, though only in the past few years. 

Ever since Jordan Peele crashed onto the horror scene with 2017’s Get Out, the comedian turned Academy Award-winning filmmaker has been open about his love for the genre and what some of his favorites are from the horror section. While speaking with Consequence of Sound in 2017 for the movie, Peele even shouted out the original The People Under the Stairs, saying:

“When we talk about blaxploitation or Tales from the Hood or Leprechaun in the Hood, I think those fall into parody town for me. They don’t scratch my horror itch as well as something like Candyman does or People Under the Stairs, which were ironically brought to us by white filmmakers…Being a black filmmaker almost seems like an impossibility at times. Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, but we as a society have done a systemic disservice to young, black filmmakers by essentially saying that your vision won’t be accepted in Hollywood.”

After the release of Get Out, Peele programmed a block of films at the Brooklyn Academy of Music titled “Jordan Peele: The Art of the Social Thriller,” including Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary’s Baby, Scream, Misery, and two other notable films, Candyman and The People Under the Stairs.