Dylan Clark to Direct ‘Blair Witch’ Reboot for Lionsgate, Original Cast and Directors Return in EP Roles

Back in 2024, the original cast of The Blair Witch Project — Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, and Joshua Leonard — released a joint statement directed at Lionsgate, asking for retroactive and future residual payments for their roles in the original film. Short version: they could have made several million each, but 20 years ago signed away the rights to the franchise for $300,000 each.

The trio also demanded “meaningful consultation” on future ‘Blair Witch’ projects, whether prequels, sequels, reboots, and so on. Oh, and they also called on Lionsgate to provide a $60,000 grant — the budget of the original ‘Blair Witch Project’ — for an “unknown/aspiring genre filmmaker” making their first film. And as it’s a grant, Lionsgate wouldn’t end up owning any rights to the project.

It looks like Lionsgate has adhered to those demands, and then some. The studio has just announced that Leonard, Williams, and Donahue are set to serve as executive producers on the upcoming ‘Blair Witch’ reboot, as are the first movie’s directing team of Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick, and Gregg Hale.

As for that “unknown/aspiring genre filmmaker,” I previously reported that Dylan Clark was set to direct the reboot, and he’s been confirmed in today’s press release — his credits include “Transfigure,” “Home Movies,” and “Seagrass.” The budget is in the $10M range. Chris Devlin (“Cobweb”) wrote the original script, with a current rewrite by Clark. Atomic Monster’s James Wan and Blumhouse’s Jason Blum are producing.

You might be asking yourself: what have Donahue, Williams, and Leonard been up to since ‘Blair Witch’? Not much. Leonard has been the busiest, mostly appearing in smaller independent films. They probably need the cash. That’s what this is all about.

Three years ago, Leonard wrote that there had been “25 years of disrespect from the folks who’ve pocketed the lion’s share (pun intended) of the profits from OUR work, and that feels both icky and classless.”

There have been three ‘Blair Witch’ movies released so far, with the original still standing as the only truly good one — and arguably the only one that mattered. That 1999 lightning strike reshaped the horror landscape and helped popularize the found-footage boom that followed. The last time we heard from this franchise, Adam Wingard essentially ran it into the ground with 2016’s “Blair Witch.”

Word is that this reboot starts production in the fall. I’m skeptical about the whole thing, as ‘Blair Witch,’ made for under $60,000, was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment that captured the zeitgeist in ways very few films manage. It is quite simply the most influential horror film of the last 25 years.