In a Hollywood marketing machine that dates films half-a-decade (or more) in advance with constant updates reminding you to be excited for their latest property, how do you genuinely surprise an audience? Lionsgate, perhaps taking a note from Paramount’s 10 Cloverfield Lane, has revealed at Comic-Con that the next film from You’re Next and The Guest director Adam Wingard, previously titled The Woods, is in fact an entirely different beast.
That’s right: it’s actually a surprise sequel to The Blair Witch Project. EW has profiled the making of the film, which follows James Allen McCune‘s character, the brother of Heather Donahue’s character from the original hit back in 1999. “They knew they wanted it to be a continuation of the first film, using Heather’s brother,” says Wingard. “That was what they came to us with.”
He adds, “From there, we were left to our own devices to figure it out. There were a lot of things that I could still remember watching the first film, as a mega-fan as a kid, thinking, what I wanted out of a sequel. Whenever I saw Book of Shadows, they just didn’t touch on all these things I wanted to see. My entrance was, How do I do the ultimate version of this? I wanted it to be a haunted house ride where you’re just strapped in and, once it gets going, there’s no turning back and you’re just going full-on into all these intense set pieces.”
An intense new trailer has now arrived for the film landing in September, and it can be seen below:
A group of college students venture into the Black Hills Forest in Maryland to uncover the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of James’ sister who many believe is connected to the legend of the Blair Witch. At first the group is hopeful, especially when a pair of locals offer to act as guides through the dark and winding woods, but as the endless night wears on, the group is visited by a menacing presence. Slowly, they begin to realize the legend is all too real and more sinister than they could have imagined.
Blair Witch opens on September 16th.