The Craft remake is finally happening at Blumhouse with, believe it or not, a female director
Aux Features The CraftGather your crystals, light some sage, and channel your inner ‘90s goth because The Craft is finally getting revived.
A remake of the 1996 witchy favorite has been loosely in the works over the years, with Sony trying to get a new version off the ground since 2015. Honeymoon director Leigh Janick was initially set to helm the remake with a script co-written by her and Phil Graziadei. We’ve heard few details since then, but now Blumhouse has been summoned to take over the project with a new director. Jason Blum’s horror studio will produce the new film alongside Columbia Pictures, according to Deadline, and actress/writer/director Zoe Lister-Jones (Band Aid, Lola Versus) is set to write and direct.
Yep, believe it or not, Jason Blum finally discovered that there are indeed more than two female directors in the world! Bless the powerful witches who relieved him of his curse of making dumbass comments. (Interestingly, Janiak was one of the few women directors Blum mentioned he was trying to work with in that now infamous interview with Polygon.) This news means Lister-Jones will become the first female director of a Blumhouse feature, and it’s about damn time.
It remains unclear whether this new version of the 1996 film will be a remake, a sequel, or a combination of both. Back in 2016, original producer Douglas Wick—who’s also onboard to produce the the reboot with Blum—described the project as taking place 20 years later. In an interview with HitFix Wick said of the reboot, “There will be callbacks to the original movie, so you will see there is a connection between what happened in the days of The Craft, and how these young women come across this magic many years later.” But given that the original remake script underwent rewrites even before Blumhouse came onboard with Lister-Jones, it’s anyone’s guess what the new Craft will look like.
20 Comments
This may be unnecessary, but I am still unreasonably excited about this.
It’s gonna be interesting to see what they do with the fashion, now that 90’s Goth Witch is like a fairly mainstream Instagram look.
Black eyeliner is and will remain one of Humanity’s greatest accomplishments.
Neo-pagans dressed in Coachella festival fashion?
I loved her in delocated.
The first Charmed TV series started in 1998, 2 years after The Craft. And now it looks like the reboot of The Craft will come out 2 years after the Charmed TV series reboot started in 2018. It’ll never happen, but maybe the new movie can follow the lead of the second TV series and focus on a coven of minority witches. Write one cameo role of an older witch that connects this film to the original, and then cast Rachel True. Completely leave out Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, and Neve Campbell. That would be karmically appropriate, and hilarious.
This news means Lister-Jones will become the first female director of a Blumhouse feature, and it’s about damn time.I think it’s just the first for one of their horror movies. They had a Catherine Hardwicke movie a few years back, though I think that was a co-production.
You can’t expect AV Club newswire writers to actually read the Polygon articles they link to.
“They had a Catherine Hardwicke movie a few years back”
And they had The Keeping Hours directed by Karen Moncrief, and The Lie directed by Veena Sud, and also they have Run Sweetheart Run directed by Shana Feste.
But hey, why let accuracy get in the way of a pretend barrier that’s been broken?
I think they should genderswap the leads and make it about male witches, then see if anyone complains it ruined their childhood. My guess is no one will.
Required music for both Craft/Charmed…
Love The Craft, but Blumhouse is hit-or-miss for me
60% miss, 30% hit, with the other 10 being “I really couldn’t give a shit either way”.
Just you wait. Hollywood will find a way to oust her citing “creative differences” and bring in Joss Whedon.
News: Film Remake Gets Green Light
I bind you, The Craft remakefrom doing harm against yourselfand harm against viewers
I do hope they get Fairuza Balk involved, i’m sure she could do with the work. And i’d love to see what she actually looks like now.
While Band Aid was a far cry from a slight occult teen movie it was very good and Zoe Lister-Jones in general is great(like everyone who was on Delocated). This honestly seems like a perfect remake for this time with reframing the plot into a more social media driven world and one where the orginal looks of the movie are now fashion. Knowing Blumhaus this will have a ton of CW/other ‘teen’/end 20 people passing for teens in it which fits perfectly with the story and if the orginal cast was around this time they would be for sure on a CW show.
Good stuff.
Honeymoon was a good movie, so I’m disappointed Janiak is off the project.
This news means Lister-Jones will become the first female director of a Blumhouse feature
False. Here is a quote from the Polygon article you link to.
Blumhouse has produced films directed by women, though none could be
easily classified as horror in the ilk of your Ouijas or Happy Death
Days: In 2013, Blumhouse produced and released Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke’s erotic thriller Plush all but went straight to video; Karen Moncrieff’s supernatural drama The Keeping Hours trickled out on to DVD this past August; Blum notes that the company just wrapped production on The Killing creator Veena Sud’s The Lie,
though he also admits the film is “squarely in the thriller genre.”