People Under the Stairs Remake Being Developed by Jordan Peele

Oscar winner Jordan Peele and Universal are staying in the horror business together and they’re developing another major remake that Peele will put his signature touch on. Collider reports that Peele has signed on to produce a remake of the Wes Craven movie, The People Under the Stairs. It’s unclear as of now how involved Peele will be in the development of the movie, meaning we’re unsure if he’ll co-write the script like he did for the upcoming Candyman directed by Nia DaCosta. It seems unlikely that Peele will direct the film, but since he hasn’t yet announced what his third movie as director will be, anything is possible.

Written and directed by the late filmmaker and released in 1991, The People Under the Stairs was less a straight horror movie from Craven 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 youngers 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.

Like Candyman, it’s poignant that Peele would be involved in developing a remake of Craven’s horror-satire as he’s been very open about being inspired by the film in years past. Following the release of his breakout debut film Get Out, Peele programmed a block of films at the Brooklyn Academy of Music titled “Jordan Peele: The Art of the Social Thriller.” Among the films he included Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary’s Baby, Get Out, Scream, Misery, and fittingly both Candyman and The People Under the Stairs.

Peele even gave a shoutout to the film while conducting interviews for Get Out, telling Consequence of Sound in 2017: “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.”

Check back here for more news on The People Under the Stairs remake as we learn them!