Exclusive: Heather Langenkamp In Talks To Return For Nightmare On Elm Street Reboot
Original star Heather Langenkamp is in negotiations to return for A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot.
Heather Langenkamp, the star of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street movie, is currently in discussions to return for a new reboot of the classic horror franchise. According to our trusted and proven sources, Heather Langenkamp may be coming back for a new installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, which has been dormant since the last reboot attempt in 2010. However, history has shown us that you can never really count on Freddy Krueger to stay dead, and bringing back the original star of the franchise would go a long way to legitimizing a reboot in the eyes of fans.
The first A Nightmare on Elm Street movie was released in 1984, kicking off one of the more enduring horror series of all time. The first movie featured Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson, one of several teenagers being targeted by the dream-dwelling undead child murderer Freddy Krueger (most notably played by Robert Englund) along with a then-unknown Johnny Depp. The franchise would go on spawn an entire media franchise of sequels, a television show, books, merchandise, and video games.
However, Heather Langenkamp has not appeared in a Nightmare on Elm Street film in decades. She first reprised the character of Nancy (who almost certainly was being name-checked by Stranger Things with the character of Nancy Wheeler) in 1987’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, widely considered to be one of the best of the sequels. Heather Langenkamp would later return as both Nancy and herself as an actress playing Nancy in 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, an odd, meta-take on the franchise that befuddled critics at the time.
While A Nightmare on Elm Street is unquestionably the most iconic series in Heather Langenkamp’s career, it is by no means the only one. She has cameoed in a Hellraiser film (which is currently being rebooted itself), as well as a Kelvin-timeline Star Trek movie, and appeared in the FX series American Horror Story: Freak Show. Additionally, Heather Langenkamp has moved into production, coordinating special effects makeup on horror classics like Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake and The Cabin in the Woods.
Currently, the rights for A Nightmare on Elm Street are owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. While the mega-company seems to have mixed thoughts on whether it should actually be utilizing the intellectual property it owns or just sitting on them for tax credits, a horror franchise as iconic as Elm Street will undoubtedly be brought back to life in some fashion sooner or later.
In all likelihood, a Nightmare on Elm Street reboot will probably take its cues from franchises like Star Wars and (more specifically) Wes Craven’s other horror series Scream and go the legacy sequel route. By bringing in an original star like Heather Langenkamp, the franchise will likely hope to use her as a connective bridge to a new cast of stars, much as the most recent Scream movie brought in Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette to pass the reins to a new generation.
