It’s inevitable that a “Nightmare on Elm Street” reboot will happen but there will likely be a new Freddy Krueger with Robert Englund bowing out…
It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Robert Englund playing dream killer Freddy Krueger but it appears he won’t be back for any “Nightmare on Elm Street” reboot.
The 72-year-old actor admitted his time playing Freddy has probably passed him by, although he is looking forward to the franchise being reignited after the rights to “Nightmare on Elm Street” recently reverted back to Wes Craven’s estate.
“I don’t think I’ll ever don the makeup again,” Englund told EW this week. “I’m a little too old for that. I’m a little long in the tooth to play Freddy now. I think if I was doing it, it would be more like Freddy vs. Viagra.”
Englund portrayed the child murderer — who was captured and burned alive by a group of vigilante parents before returning as an ominous dream demon who then killed kids when they slept — for eight movies in total. Englund last played Freddy in 2003’s “Freddy vs. Jason,” which saw his character go up against Jason Voorhees from the “Friday the 13th” franchise.
Talks have been ongoing about a “Nightmare on Elm Street” reboot ever since the rights to the franchise reverted back to Craven’s family following his death in 2015. No decisions have been made about a potential reboot, although prominent horror directors like Mike Flanagan — best known for his work on “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Doctor Sleep” — have volunteered with ideas for a new installment for the franchise.
Englund says he would be willing to come back to play a different role but his days playing Freddy are likely done.
“I know that the rights to “A Nightmare on Elm Street” have gone back to the Wes Craven family estate,” Englund said. “And I know they’ve looked at a lot of different submissions and ideas. I’m hoping they’re open-minded, because there’s a lot of young screenwriters and wannabe director-screenwriters that have been kind of obsessed with the horror genre and have some interesting ideas. I would love to be invited back if they decide to reboot “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors”. I would love to come back and maybe play the dream analyst (the character of Dr. Elizabeth Simms, played by Elizabeth Pointer), the woman in the therapy sessions who doesn’t believe that there can be such a thing as a collective nightmare that’s common to a group of people. I think it would be fun for the fans, it would be fun for me to play the part originally played by a woman and do a flip on that.
“I think there’s kind of a tradition in the horror genre of cameos like that, so that would be fun for me. But I have no idea whether they’re going to go on and create completely new stories or whether they’re going to go back and do prequels or origin stories on the Freddy Krueger myth. I don’t know what they’re up to. So, I’m just waiting to hear.”
In 2010, a “Nightmare on Elm Street” remake was produced with Jackie Earle Haley playing Freddy but the film was a critical disaster while pulling in just over $115 million at the box office.
The recent success in the relaunch of the “Halloween” franchise with Jamie Lee Curtis returning to her iconic role as Laurie Strode has several slasher series thinking about a comeback. None would be bigger than “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” which remains a fan favorite after all these years.
