Eduardo Sanchez pretty much made the found-footage genre. The man, alongside co-director Daniel Myrick introduced the world to The Blair Witch Project back in 1999 & basically created a new sub-genre that raked in millions of dollars in the process. Inevitably the candy coated studio sequel [Artizan] got made & kind of killed the franchise. Well all is not lost for there are rumblings in the woods, Sanchez & Myrick have been developing their own Blair Witch sequel ideas for quite a while & when Sanchez caught up with Bloody Disgusting, the filmaker stated "We’re as close as we’ve ever been to making it happen". This is great because for all its flaws I have very fond memories of The Blair Witch, in fact I even liked the sequel to some extent but that was probably down to acid & the end of a pretty amazing summer in SF. Hit the jump for the details.
While attending the premiere of his latest effort Lovely Molly which Sanchez wrote & directed, the filmmaker opened up on the current status of Blair Witch 3,
Sanchez "It’s completely up to Lionsgate. Dan and I are ready to do it. We’ve been toying around with a sequel idea that we really like. It’s just a matter of getting our schedules in line and having Lionsgate sign off on the idea. We’ve been ready to do a ‘Blair Witch’ movie for a long time. We’re as close as we’ve ever been to making it happen but it’s still not a guaranteed thing."
Will the events of Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows be incorporated into the sequel?
Sanchez "I actually liked the sequel but at the same time it exists in a world outside of the movie. So if we want to do a sequel to ‘Blair Witch Project,’ we have to stay in that world, which ‘Book of Shadows’ didn’t stay in that world. ‘Book of Shadows’ created a different world. It’s like if the sequel to ‘Jaws’ started with shots of people lined up to see ‘Jaws’ in the movie theater. For ‘Book of Shadows’ it worked in a certain way but to me my biggest gripe with Artisan was you shouldn’t have called it ‘Blair Witch 2.’ It would’ve been fine to call it Blair Witch Chronicles. It wasn’t really a sequel to our movie. so it would be a direct sequel to our film living in that mythology of Burkittsville, being possessed, haunted by something."
Would the original cast return?
Sanchez "Right now, the idea has no first person in it at all, but we’ll see. There’s always room for new ideas to come in….[and] The plan is to have them [back]. They’re probably not going to be the main characters but they’re definitely characters in the sequel."
Sounds good but I am little concerned as Lionsgate still have to move forward with the project. Sanchez & Myrick did give up some more details of the possible sequel while chatting to the BBC on the occasion of The Blair Witch's tenth anniversary.
Sanchez "We had this very basic and very primal foundation, which was fear of the woods, I mean, who isn't afraid of the woods at night?, To me, the woods at night is a place where humans maybe used to feel at home there, but I think that now we fear them."It transmits not just culturally, but to people of all ages." Ideally, each Blair Witch film would be a completely different kind of movie. We’ve thought about doing a film that takes place in the late 1700s and looks like a Kubrick movie with gritty looking people and lighting."
Would the sequel retain the use of found footage?
Sanchez "But now, we’re thinking about going back and and seeing what happened directly after the first film finished. I think it will have some kind of video element in it, but it won’t be a first person hand-held movie."
Thanks to /Film for the quotes.
