Wes Craven Estate OKs Revival of This Classic Horror Franchise - What We Know

"What's your favorite scary movie?" is just one iconic line from Scream, now celebrating a 30-year milestone.

Its director, Wes Craven, helmed a number of other horror classics, including A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). And now, Paramount Pictures has closed a deal for the U.S. rights to his screenplay that kicked off the franchise about the infamous Freddy Krueger (portrayed by Robert Englund).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new Nightmare on Elm Street will hail from Paramount's new genre label, Paramount Primal, led by the producers of recent hits such as Barbarian and Friendship. The U.S. rights are reportedly being licensed from the Craven estate, which includes Craven's widow Iya Labunka and Craven's son Jonathan Craven.

"We look forward to bringing the world of Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street to a new and completely engaged generation of fans," said Labunka in a statement. "We know that Wes would have been thrilled to see how horror is taking its long overdue place in the cultural canon. We can't wait for all of us to sit together in a dark theatre – around the campfire of today – as the next chapter of the Nightmare story unfolds."

New Line Cinema, and later corporate owner Warner Bros. previously held all the rights to Nightmare on Elm Street as the company made the original movie in 1984. Back in the '80s, the original launched a lucrative franchise for New Line Cinema, which was just an independent film company at the time and thus earned the nickname "the house that Freddy built," THR also noted on Monday, July 13.

As fans well know, the numerous installments center on Krueger, a child killer who was burned alive by parents but later returns in victims' dreams. No details on the upcoming movie have been revealed, but THR says it's been described as being "set in the world of A Nightmare on Elm Street, based on the original screenplay."

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This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 2:26 PM.