Blair Witch reboot is an unwelcome surprise to original cast and crew
Like a trio of filmmakers trying to make a documentary about some Maryland folklore, The Blair Witch Project is at war with itself.
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Photo: Moviestore/Shutterstock
The Blair Witch Project has never been a cut-and-dry Hollywood project. This scrappy $35,000 mockumentary wasn’t meant to be a blockbuster, but it went on to become one of the most profitable independent films ever made. Now, due to the creative marketing and filmmaking savvy of co-directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez and their team, Hollywood is legally obligated to attempt a Blair Witch sequel every decade. Historically, this has not been a good idea, but hope springs eternal in showbiz.
While some hold out hope that Lionsgate and Blumhouse’s latest attempt will be different than Book Of Shadows and 2016's Blair Witch, some of the original cast and crew aren’t so optimistic—namely because of how disregarded their work has been treated. Take Joshua Leonard, who plays Josh in the 1999 film, for example. Despite his face being used for promotional materials for a new Blair Witch, no one even bothered to tell him that a new movie was in the works.
“This is MY face on a press release for a film being made by two major studios — both I’ve worked for, both I respect,” Leonard wrote on Facebook in response to a Variety story that used a screenshot from the film. “The WEIRD PART is that I didn’t know anything about it until a friend sent me a ‘congrats’ screenshot yesterday.”
“There were many factors that made [Blair Witch Project] a success: timing, marketing, etc. But there was also the FACT that us weirdos got together, with virtually no resources, AND MADE A FILM THAT WORKED! Can we just go on record and say that the film itself is a huge part of why we’re still talking about it 25 years later?”
Leonard went on to dispel some of the myths about the film. He writes that Artisan Entertainment, the film’s original distributor, “claimed to have released the most profitable independent film ever (bought for 1M, grossed 250M+), while internally they told us that they were actually losing money from marketing expenses… so WE might wind up owing THEM [money].” Leonard also claims each actor made $300,000 and “never saw another dime.” Within a year of the film’s release, “Mike [C. Williams] was back to moving furniture.”
“At this point, it’s 25 years of disrespect from the folks who’ve pocketed the lion’s share (pun intended) of the profits from OUR work, and that feels both icky and classless.”
Others shared his sentiment, hoping that including some of the original filmmakers would help the film’s chances. One of the Blair Witch’s producers, Mike Monello, tweeted last week, “Radical idea: You could try putting this project in the hands of the original team that made the first one. You know, the team that actually has an entire franchise plan to reinvent what a Blair Witch movie could be?”
“Anyone working on this franchise must understand that ‘Blair Witch’events occur every 50–60 years,” he continued. “That’s been codified in the mythology even before the first movie came out, and it’s one reason why ‘sequels’ aren’t the way to go.”
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, production designer Ben Rock said the “original creators were overlooked” for Book Of Shadows and 2016’s Blair Witch. “Other people were brought in, all of whom were good, but neither one of the sequels connected with audiences the way they wanted it to connect. And so it might at least be worth talking to some of the original creators.”
“I’m hoping Blumhouse isn’t like, ‘Hey, let’s go reboot this without talking to anybody [from the first one].’ But they haven’t talked to any of us.”
Maybe it is time to put the cameras back in the hands of Leonard, Donahue, and Williams or, at the very least, bring Myrick and Sánchez back aboard. There’s a clear disconnect between what worked in the first film and where the two sequels ended up. Perhaps the people who turned the first one into a success can catch lightning in a bottle again. At the very least, they could probably do it much cheaper.
72 Comments
The original was fine for its time, though I can’t remember whether it spelled the end of shakey-cam-shows-are-cool or just helped normalise them.
That final shot though of the guy simply facing the corner of the basement was remarkably creepy though. And AFAIK the franchise hasn’t topped that since.
I looked it up once, and while I can’t remember the exact numbers, there were like ten movies using the found footage conceit released every year after the BWP for every one before. It exemplifies a lot of both the strengths and weaknesses of the genre, but it’s also one of those movies that had such a ludicrously massive impact at the time that it’s difficult to really explain to someone under 30.
I’m trying to remember earlier ones, and now I’m picturing The Office as a found footage show where Micheal goes nuts and murders everybody and the show is really about going through all the tapes trying to piece together what happened.
If that’s at all true, it didn’t become true for a while; for years after BWP nobody was calling anything “found footage” and the whole approach seemed so singular to that movie (Cannibal Holocaust’s 19 years in the mirror notwithstanding) that any attempts to knock it off were considered embarrassingly obvious, like in The St. Francisville Experiment where one character just looks into the camera and says “see Blair Witch?” I don’t think it took off as an anyone-can-do-this style until we got a bunch of them in 2007.
I don’t think it took off as an anyone-can-do-this style until we got a bunch of them in 2007.
That was my recollection too. I don’t think the genre really took off until Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield. Probably not too coincidental that this was when cellphones really took off and the cameras became better.
I can practically hear producers laying out remakes for both of those features now.
It’s probably not exhaustive, but Wikipedia’s entry for Found Footage has 13 movies between 1961 (when the first entry is listed) and Blair Witch in 1999 and 14 between BW and the end of 2006. I think you can reasonably argue that the next good one didn’t happen until 2007, but the seven years after Blair Witch had about the same number of found footage movies as the prior 38. The numbers do really explode after that, though.
That was also by far the cheapest way to make a movie – grab a bunch of unknown actors and run around with a JVC portable VHS camera.
There was a pretty good found footage mockumentary that came out the year before Blair Witch, called “The Last Broadcast.” It bore a lot of similarities, being about a film crew who were murdered in the woods while investigating the Jersey Devil.
I didn’t get that last shot, and I think I even went back and watched it again at least once.But while the ending did nothing for me, I kind of liked the movie. I’ve been in that Twilite Zone situation where you get lost and just keep ending up in the same place no matter which way you go.
It’s been years since I saw the movie, but I think there was some tale of the witch who would make kids stand in the corner, so then when the people in the movie find the house (that just seemingly appears out of nowhere), go inside, upstairs, past all the children’s hand prints on the walls, and then go downstairs but can’t find the way out, keep going downstairs and then the camera just pans over the basement briefly catching the back of one of the main cast standing in the corner (and then I think the camera gets knocked to the floor), it was a pretty effective crescendo for a movie that otherwise (and arguably literally) went nowhere.
IIRC the witch was also contributing to their disorientation, which is what makes the one guy finally lose it (and really fuck them all over in the process).
I’ve never seen the original. Is it worth viewing nowadays?
Yes. Still the best and most effective found footage movie out there.
Rec is better.
People seem to hate it when I opine about this; it was one of the dumbest things I’d ever seen. I was between bored to tears and trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. The thing was so massively hyped that people seemed to be walking into the theatres all ready to get hysterical. Says something about the power of marketing. But, sure, go ahead and view it. Decide for yourself; and at least you’ll know what foks are referring to.
Honestly, I have to agree. I wanted to dropkick the main character into the creek like they did the map. When it ended in the theater, people glared at me because blurted out rather loudly, “That’s it?” Wish I had those hours and $8 back.
Bless you, I feel affirmed. For the first time ever I did an internet check. The marketing truly was the key. They built an entire mythology around this flimsy beast, encouraging people to believe that it was real. Good grief people can be fools.
Well it helps that the studio really committed to the bit. A lot of marketing was done on the early internet and everything looked like shit then (plus lots of people didn’t even have internet access) so you couldn’t say “this website is too professional to be legit”. You had to put in effort to find the truth.Maybe it wasn’t a good movie but if you look back on the whole thing it’s probably the first example of things going “viral”, and a marketing executive’s wet dream.
Yeah the rebuttal to any claims that that original group should be in charge of the reboot should just be showing the map kicking scene on repeat for 5 minutes and then making them explain themselves.
What an extraordinarily obnoxious thing to exclaim in a theater.
Right? I thought I was the only person in the universe who hated it. People talk about it as if it was the “Sistine Chapel” of horror movies. But when the lights turned on at the end of my viewing of it in a theater, I was all “WHAT THE FUCK?”, and wished for my money AND time back.
I was mad too. I don’t appreciate being played like that but I bought the ticket. It was truly bizarre watching the other people in the theatre perform all of that phony panic, because I don’t think they bought it either. god forbid anyone admit they didn’t love (as you put it) the Sistine Chapel of found horror.
We don’t agree on everything here at the AVClub comment section but I agree with you on this. I remember my manager at work being Blair Witch pilled before it came out from all the viral marketing about it being “real”. We saw it together opening night at a midnight screening after work and he absolutely thought it was the scariest thing he ever saw. I thought it was boring
The original is a pretty decent movie.
Yes it’s an excellent chilling movie
I’d say so. Of all the found footage movies that have been made since, it’s still far more believable than the vast majority of them. It feels precisely like what you’d get from three young hopeful documentarians getting lost in the woods. That can make it grating at points, but it also makes things work extremely well when it decides to finally go all out.
Sure but you’ll probably fall asleep. The only thing that kept awake when I saw it was the ridiculous amount of hype surrounding it and the excitement in the moviegoers sitting around me. I was not impressed.
I saw it in theater when it came out. The combination of my boredom and my date’s motion sickness made us leave less than halfway through. I watched the whole thing a few months later when a friend rented it and hated every minute of it. Even bad horror movies are good for a laugh, but this one made me feel nothing.
Love this. I wanted so badly to walk out. Kudos.
I liked it, although maybe it’s because I have a poor sense of direction and so I can see the horror in getting lost and realizing that you’ve been walking in circles easier than others. Like others have said, its primary sin was that it spawned a whole slew of found-footage movies with nauseating shaky hand-held camera footage.
probably yes, unless you get motion sickness. it’s definitely a product of its time and does not live up to all the hype, but it’s decent if you stick with it.
You’ll find divided opinions on it but: The scariest thing about it was how nauseous the camera movement made my friend when we saw it on release.If you like people who can’t really act very well crying, screaming and wandering around the woods for apparently no real reason and then an ending that is total nonsense, it might be for you.
I saw it for the first time like 2 years ago and wasn’t impressed. But I’ve seen so many crappy “found footage” horror movies that I’m completely jaded against the genre.
it is hard to quantify how engrossing it was without the original marketing materials. The accompanying website was a masterclass in building anticipation when no films at all had websites that were worth anything other than a landing site for a poster. You could spend hours pouring over details of the case before seeing the film. There is no way to replicate that now.
Counter to most of these responses, I loved it. I love camping and hiking so I know the unease of hearing something outside your tent or strange distant noises. I think it taps into that very effectively. But I also saw it at home on a TV, and I get why it must have sucked in the theater. I imagine the big screen contributed to much of people’s motion sickness. It looks like it’s supposed to be on a TV. The scares aren’t the kind that are enhanced by a crowd screaming and laughing; you should feel alone when you watch it.
I saw it a few years after release. I was too young when it was in theaters. It’s a fine horror movie, but it is low budget and occasionally creaky… and it has the same problem many influential movies do, where you’ve probably seen one or two things it influenced so it might seem derivative.
All that said, I also liked Book of Shadows. Is it a good movie? No. Is it a Blair Witch movie? Honestly, also no. It was a script for an unrelated movie that got retrofitted. But it’s enjoyable in the way that dumbass horror movies can be.
I’ve heard people say they were bored. I don’t really watch horror movies, don’t love jump scares, etc. I thought it was absolutely terrifying. The tension level just kept ratcheting up and up and up, a lot of what’s scary is in little details and little pieces that feel possible and otherwise left to your imagination, and the people feel very real. I think a lot of what made it special has been done elsewhere very well or better since, but just how low tech it was and how real it felt really drew me in back then. It was a LOT for folks like me who buy into things and is seared into my mind… but if you’re used to the stuff it does well, I can see it being boring.
It’s probably worth it from a general pop culture knowledge standpoint, and there ARE some legitimately frightening stretches. But it’s also a slow burn, with a lot of the impact coming from ever-increasing disorientation of the main characters and then a jarring ending.But I don’t think the impact of seeing the movie back in the day can be separated from the found footage element, supported by probably the first viral internet campaign that leaned into how and where it was found. People thought that shit was real, or at very least allowed it to influence their viewing experiences.
I guess if you are curious but I thought it was bad in 1999. A lot of why it did so well was the early hype around it being “real” and the fun of seeing a scary movie in a theater with a bunch of people. But overall its kinda a slog
I re-watched it recently with a friend who’d never seen it, and I’d say if nothing else it’s one to watch as a touchstone, because it influenced so much of the found footage genre that came after it. It’s got its charms, too, if you can accept that the characters are supposed to be unlikeable dipshits. Personally my favorite bits are the interviews with the locals. Some of them really commit to the bit.
It’s decent, but one of the big selling points when it originally came out, and a big part of why it made so much money, is that they marketed it as being REAL found footage. I never saw it in the theater, so by the time I did watch it, obviously everyone knew it was all fake (which, duh, of course it was, but it was the central part of the marketing), the novelty had already worn off. It’s like when you know the man behind the curtain is the actual Oz, if you know what I mean.
Yes. It’s great. A great idea for a movie and really well-executed. It’s a shame a lot of the rhetoric around it has been shaped by backlash, people just really, really invested in telling you how much smarter they were than everyone else 25 years ago. Tune that out. Just appreciate an interesting, riveting film about how people compartmentalize fear. If the characters seem annoying (a common criticism), remember showing how people try to cope with things that are impossible to cope with is part of the point. Really. I’m passionate about this. It’s a good movie.
I liked it a lot, thought it was quite effective. I also liked what Heather Donahue said when, during the inevitable backlash against the movie, her acting was dismissed. She said something like “I’ve got news for you guys – a pile of rocks is NOT scary.”
It’s worth it just for being a piece of film history, just because you might as well see what catapulted the found footage horror genre into prominence. It’s actually much better than most of the contrived found footage slop that followed.
Speaking as somebody who’s not a big horror fan: It’s genuinely one of my favorite horror movies.
The original was good but people like to hate on it nowadays because it was so popular and hyped up at the time, and we went through a phase where found footage was overused so there’s the idea that it’s a bad genre now. This film was brought up at my office just last week and the hate was flowing in full force.
Not dissing anyone who legitimately disliked the film. Everyone’s got different tastes. But it’s clearly a target and an easy punching bag for people who like to tear things down to feel smugly superior.
I find horror movies to be the most subjective movie genre. What one finds boring another finds terrifying. Both opiate valid. I think a lot of the negative feelings toward the Blair Witch Project are based on the way it was marketed at the time of it’s release. I only saw it for the first time a few years ago and thought it was fantastic. Tension and vibes often do more for me than jump scares and gore though. To each their own.
Who’s The Rock playing in this?
An actual rock.
The witch of course. Which (ha!) will fix the problem in the original where the guy in the corner at the end was off his mark and ended up blocking our view of it.
Well by contract he can’t lose a fight, so it fits.
He was leaning in the corner of the room; how could the witch possibly have been behind him?
It wasn’t; Obviously it was in front of him and so we couldn’t see it because the jerk was blocking our view!
I feel like there’s a joke here that I’m not getting.
I hope these folks aren’t trying to imply that they deserve some sort of financial compensation for their creative output and any properties derived thereof, because we don’t take to kindly to that kind of talk around these parts. Profits from ordinary people’s creative works belongs to those brave souls willing to risk other people’s money in an elaborate scheme designed to insulate themselves if a movie fails and fill up their pools of gold coins if it succeeds.
Then they shouldn’t have sold away the rights. They weren’t complaining when the money for marketing and distribution was handed to them. The film wouldn’t have been seen by more than a handful of people if they didn’t make the deal. Kind of disingenuous to bitch after the fact. Nobody made them sell their rights away.
i always remember being 14yrs and queing up to see Blair Witch on opening night. when the film finished, me and my friend ran to the bus stop because we were so spooked, lol.didn’t know about the 2016 film.
Big horror fan, watched Blair Witch Project back when it was released. I found it so incredibly boring until about the last minute. By the end I really just wanted all of them to die. It also launched countless other boring “found footage” horror movies (hmmm, maybe that style isn’t my thing). Not the first to use that framing (hello Cannibal Holocaust), but the first to make a buttload of money using it.
I don’t think anyone other than hard-core horror aficionados had heard of Cannibal Holocaust prior to the release of BWP, though. It was called out after the fact as being the first example of the genre (and hideously gruesome).
And for the fact that unlike the traditional disclaimer in films, animals definitely *were* harmed in the filming, which may put people off even if they don’t mind the gore.
Fair – even once people got over the content of the film itself there was always that permanent bit of nastiness.
My daughter’s first R-rated film, so I had accompany her and her friends. Living in a semi-rural area and having spent time in actual remote woods in Canada I was annoyed by all the inept wandering around and around—they even had the book “How to Stay Alive in the Woods” which explains what to do when you’re lost! So I too found it as tedious as reported. But then there was the last five minutes…
I thought the bag of teeth and stick idols in the woods were pretty damn creepy as well.
Wait a minute: the original creators are still alive?!?!
Signing away the rights to the IP you created means you don’t own the IP anymore. And if the actors were talented enough they easily could’ve used the film to springboard their careers. Sour grapes.
I want to know the full story here. How much did the film makers eventually get paid? Where are they now and how can people put pressure on the studios to pay up. Thats criminal how much money they have made.
Where were all the people who disliked Blair Witch Project when Skinamarink came out? That was overhyped. But maybe I’m one of the few people who disliked Skinamarink and enjoyed BWP.
I adamantly refuse to watch a horror movie named after the closing theme from The Elephant Show. “Corrupting the audience’s innocent childhood memories” is one of my least favorite tropes ever.
Please someone hit me up on X.com when they reboot Project X as Project X-Dot -Com (formerly Twitter)
The Blair Witch Project both shows me how old I am and how someone watching it now would say this has been done a thousand times. I was in my 20’s in 99 and watching the movie in a little theatre in Bishop, CA (I was out there bouldering) and it was terrifying and the audience was aghast. It was an experience. There was nothing like it reaching movie audiences at that time. At that time you actually had to go theaters, instead of streaming everything like today. Aside from any discussions about the film being “good” or not, it’s a great example of a studio utterly fucking the creators out of any money. In the industry that’s probably what it’s known for more. Artisan took a dive on a $60K movie, bought for a mil, made $250 mil, and said contractually we can pay you minimum so, fuck off. They then claimed the entire movie was a loss due to “Hollywood accounting” where you can arbitrarily attribute losses from one aspect of your company projects to projects that had nothing to do with them. So the people that made them $250 mil got a pittance.
That is lame and sad, but unsurprising. Hollywood is run by parasites.