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The Nightmare on Elm Street Prequel That Adam Sandler Ruined

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Though the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise has to date included seven installments, plus a spinoff and a remake, very little time in the series has been spent on Freddy’s backstory – before he became the dream demon. It’s a story that’s ripe for getting its own movie, and at one point there were plans to do just that.

Most known for directing the thoroughly disturbing and frighteningly realistic Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, John McNaughton was at one point attached to direct Elm Street: First Kills, which was to end with Freddy being burnt alive. The majority of the film was to focus on his titular first kills, and feature Fred’s trial after being caught.

So whatever happened to the movie? Why did it never end up finding its way in front of cameras? In a new interview with Bloody Disgusting, McNaughton spilled the beans, revealing that Adam Sandler is indirectly to blame for First Kills falling off New Line’s radar. Yes. Adam Sandler.

I started thinking about what we haven’t seen before and the idea came of well, where did Freddy [Krueger] come from before he returned in the first picture?” McNaughton told the site. “Nothing could keep me from going to Hell and the idea of actually setting a story in Hell, that to me, I was just like a pig in shit.”

At the time, New Line has just made the Adam Sandler film Little Nicky, and since it featured many scenes in Hell and didn’t perform well at the box office, McNaughton says they were no longer interested in his unique Elm Street concept.

After that didn’t do too well, New Line didn’t want to go back to Hell,” said the director. “So I basically told them to go to Hell. Just the idea of being under the thumb of the studio and being called on to satisfy genre expectations, it’s not something that would make me happy. They were unwilling to go to Hell with me and it just came apart.”

First Kills is one of several Elm Street films that never got off the ground, and the list also includes Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash and even a sequel penned by Peter Jackson. To date, the closest we’ve come to a true Elm Street prequel was the pilot episode of Freddy’s Nightmares, directed by Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist).

With the Elm Street franchise dead in the water after the terrible remake, perhaps now is the time to strike with a prequel? I don’t know about you, but I for one would love to see it.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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