Six years after becoming a semifinalist on Steven Spielberg’s short-lived filmmaking competition show On The Lot, Zach Lipovsky will at last see all his youthful dreams and ambitions fulfilled by directing Lionsgate’s reboot of Leprechaun—the pot of gold at the end of his very own rainbow, guarded by a nasty leprechaun who occasionally raps. As we reported last year, the new Leprechaun is a co-production of WWE Films, which devised the reboot after realizing it had a little-person wrestler who sometimes dressed up as a leprechaun in Hornswoggle, and also that studio executives will say yes to anything, if it means they don’t have to go to the trouble of nurturing an original idea.
The Wrap reports that Harris Wilkinson’s script for what it calls “the long-awaited reboot of the successful horror franchise,” with typical deadpan aplomb, is still being kept secret. However, the registered IMDb title Leprechaun: Origins definitely suggests the film will delve even more deeply into the Leprechaun’s rich backstory, perhaps finally exploring how the conquest of 17th-century Ireland by Oliver Cromwell eventually led to the Leprechaun trying to kill Jennifer Aniston then blasting into space. It will mark the feature-directing debut of Lipovsky, who is no doubt this very minute emailing On The Lot winner Will Bigham to ask if he’s signed on to direct any Leprechaun reboots starring professional wrestlers lately, ha ha.