Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick broke onto the scene back in 1999 when Artisan released The Blair Witch Project unto the world. Banking nearly $250 million worldwide boxoffice, a sequel was quickly rushed into production that failed to make it past $50 million across the globe. Since then, rumors of a third film have freely floating out of the director's mouths.
Following the premiere of Lovely Molly, Bloody Disgusting's Fred Topel caught up with Sanchez who revealed new info on the long-gestured sequel that will bring back many of the original film's actors. The real question is: with found footage being the new "cool," why the hell hasn't Lionsgate pushed this guy off the ground? Maybe this is the year...
In Sanchez's ouvre, the 'Blair Witch' creator confirmed he is ready to make a third film to bring the series back from 'Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.' "It's completely up to Lionsgate," Sanchez said. "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."
Sanchez and Myrick's idea would basically ignore the Joe Berlinger sequel. "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."
Now that found footage is passé, a 'Blair Witch 3' would update the storytelling by evolving from the "film student in the woods" style of the original. "Right now, the idea has no first person in it at all, but we'll see," Sanchez said. "There's always room for new ideas to come in."
Expect Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams to make a comeback too, though not as the leads. "The plan is to have them [back]," Sanchez revealed. "They're probably not going to be the main characters but they're definitely characters in the sequel."
That means the sequel may answer questions about the original's ambiguous ending. It certainly can't be a flashback if the actors are all 10 years older now. "No, it's not."
