For over 25 years, the creators of The Blair Witch Project have been largely absent from their own franchise. Now, finally, they’re part of the team on the reboot. Here’s what could be a happy ending for a story we’ve been covering for a couple of years now. The creators of 1999’s The Blair Witch ... The Blair With Project | 1999 film’s actors and directors are now executive producers on reboot
For over 25 years, the creators of The Blair Witch Project have been largely absent from their own franchise. Now, finally, they’re part of the team on the reboot.
Here’s what could be a happy ending for a story we’ve been covering for a couple of years now. The creators of 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, for years largely left out of an influential horror franchise they founded, are now being added as executive producers on the new movie, in the works at Lionsgate and Blumhouse.
Announced in 2024, the Blair Witch reboot will be directed by Dylan Clark, and is billed as a “new vision” for the supernatural franchise, which began with the found footage original over 25 years ago.
The announcement blindsided the team behind the 1999 film; its directors, Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick, knew nothing about it. Nor did actors Joshua Leonard, Michael C Williams or Heather Donahue, who lent their names and likenesses to the original film. Despite being part of Blair Witch lore – their fictionalised selves pop up in the sequels – the actors have barely profited from the franchise.
The original was a non-union movie made for just $35,000; as a result, the actors had to sue Lionsgate for using their names without consultation. They were eventually paid $300,000 to share between them; a drop in the ocean compared to a franchise worth hundreds of millions.
Read more: The Blair Witch Project | How we made the most influential horror film of 1999
We spoke to Sanchez and Myrick in 2024 as an anniversary Blair Witch Blu-ray emerged. They expressed their bemusement at the time that they weren’t at least being consulted on the new movie.
“To be included again would be nice,” Sanchez said. “Even if they don’t listen to us. Just to pick our brains – and again, like Dan was saying, we have a little bit of a fan base that’s dedicated to the original movie and it would be good press for them to bring us back in. But, we’ll see what happens.”
The Hollywood Reporter now has news that Sanchez, Myrick, producer Gregg Hale and actors Michael C Williams and Joshua Leonard have all been given an executive producer title on the forthcoming reboot. Whether that means they’ll have creative input in the film or not, it at least means they should get a shred of compensation from a hugely influential horror franchise.
(There’s no mention of co-star Heather Donahue in THR’s report; we’re hopeful that her name will be added to the reboot roster in due course.)
The sequels may not have left much of a dent in the collective imagination, but the 1999 film was a true cultural moment, popularising the found footage subgenre and sweeping horror down a new, grimier avenue.
More on the new Blair Witch as it comes in.
