Report: New ‘Elm Street’ Reboot Finally in the Works

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to sleep, we may finally be getting an Elm Street reboot.

For some reason, the idea of A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot holds great appeal for the vast majority of fans, even though the 2010 retelling still feels like a really bad dream.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) slashed $117.7M out of the global box office (against its $35M budget), but it was torn apart by fans and critics. The casting of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger likely sealed the deal before cameras even started rolling — after all, Robert Englund was born to play the iconic dream demon — but the film is also pretty bad.

Perhaps its worst crime is that it lacks any sort of imagination in its dream scenarios — the ultimate playground for any horror movie.

But while Jackie Earle Haley does the best with what he’s given — which amounts to nothing more than a few half-decent one-liners — both the attempt to make him look like an actual burn victim and his new backstory are tasteless, to say the least. Rooney Mara is also mystifyingly terrible as final girl Nancy Holbrook.

Or maybe we went in with unrealistically high expectations. A modern reboot of a horror classic? Come on. But, then again, Platinum Dunes had already given us two surprisingly decent retellings with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and Friday the 13th (2009). Besides, anything with Elm Street slapped on it is always going to attract the hordes.

Of course, the 2010 reboot didn’t do any harm to the franchise — at least not to anything that had come before it. We still have nine A Nightmare on Elm Street movies we can enjoy (well, less than half that if your taste is anything like ours). But the film would answer the question countless Elm Street teens had been asking since 1984: How do you kill Freddy Krueger?

Related: How to Watch the ‘Elm Street’ Movies, Including the Reboot and TV Series

For the last 14 years, attempts to resurrect the lucrative property have fallen flat. For whatever reason we’ve not gotten another movie, or even a television show like most slasher franchises are getting these days (Scream, Chucky, Halloween, Friday the 13th), it seemed that Freddy really was dead and that the Platinum Dunes reboot was the “final nightmare”.

Now, that could be about to change, as Blumhouse Pictures, the studio behind box office monsters like the Insidious, The Conjuring, The Invisible Man, The Black Phone, Happy Death Day, and, more notably, the latest Halloween trilogy (Halloween 2018, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends), is reportedly working on a secret horror movie reboot.

Last month, director Lee Cronin, who helmed last year’s incredibly gory horror reboot Evil Dead Rise (2023), shared a cryptic image of a script cover with the name of the movie scribbled out on his X (Twitter) feed under the release date for the mystery project:

4.17.26

4.17.26 pic.twitter.com/VNsMmJDQzN

— Lee Cronin (@curleecronin) June 13, 2024

Related: Brand-New ‘Elm Street’ Sequel Is Now Available to Watch Online!

One user simply replies with A Nightmare on Elm Street written in all caps:

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

— Um Baiano Geek ???? (@umbaianogeek) June 13, 2024

Another is “begging” for the secret project to be an Elm Street reboot:

Please be A Nightmare on Elm Street!! I’m begging please!!!!

Please be A Nightmare on Elm Street!!
I’m begging please!!!!

— JPhoenix (@JPhoeni57673975) June 14, 2024

Related: ‘Elm Street’ Reboot May Feature a Female Freddy Krueger

The same day the post was shared on X, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Cronin had teamed with James Wan’s Atomic Monster banner to direct a mysterious new project described as “a modern take on something ancient.”

While “ancient” isn’t a word anyone would use to describe A Nightmare on Elm Street (except for a Gen Z fan, perhaps) the article goes on to say that New Line Cinema — the studio that owns the rights to the IP internationally (the Wes Craven Estate holds the rights domestically, but rumor has it Blumhouse won a bidding war for it last year) — will be releasing the film on April 17, 2026.

But what really throws fuel to the fire is the statement from Cronin: “Collaborating with Jason [Blum], James [Wan] and the wonderful teams from these two storied and massively successful organizations is what perfect nightmares are made of.”

Nightmares. Did Lee Cronin just tell us without telling us?

Another clue is that, while promoting Evil Dead Rise last year, Cronin told ComicBook.com that he’s interested in directing an Elm Street reboot. Has he finally been given a shot? Of course, there’s every chance this isn’t what we hope it is — there are probably still a surprising number of horror classics yet to get the reboot treatment — but we can dream.

Would you like to see an Elm Street reboot from the Evil Dead Rise director? Let us know in the comments down below!