‘The Blair Witch Project’ Original Cast Members Request Retroactive Payment

Does the world want one other tackle The Blair Witch Mission? The groundbreaking 1999 film, which starred Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard, and Rai Hance (then referred to as Heather Donahue), was lightning in a bottle, filmed for an estimated $60,000 throughout a famously grueling eight-day, oft-improvised shoot. It was a field workplace blockbuster, with a $248-million-plus theatrical launch and two sequels—three, should you depend the revival horror-on-the-cheap skilled Jason Blum introduced slightly greater than per week in the past. That newest information annoyed the Blair Witch originals, who launched an open letter Saturday asking for belated compensation for his or her long-ago work.

“So, that is MY face on a press launch for a movie being made by two main studios,” Leonard wrote on April 11, sharing an Instagram put up from Selection. (I ought to be aware right here that the merchandise Leonard referenced was not a press launch, it was a information report from CinemaCon, the place Blum introduced the reboot as a part of a partnership with Lionsgate, which owns the Blair Witch IP.) “I didn’t know something about it till a good friend despatched me a ‘congrats’ screenshot yesterday.”

In line with Leonard, after the movie’s success, the primary forged was every paid $300,000 “as a buyout for our possession factors … and NEVER noticed one other dime.”

“I’m so happy with our little punk-rock film, and I LOVE the followers who hold the flames burning,” Leonard stated of the movie. “However at this level, it’s 25 years of disrespect from the oldsters who’ve pocketed the lion’s share (pun meant) of the income from OUR work, and that feels each icky and classless.” (Self-importance Honest reached out to Lionsgate for remark however has not obtained a response as of publication time.)

In a put up the subsequent day, Leonard clarified that “Cash isn’t the purpose” of his prior put up, and acknowledged that “We signed contracts once we had been children, with no authorized or union help. We had been struggling artists, and the truth that we didn’t have to fret about meals/lease for some time was as massive a win as any of us might’ve dreamed of.” Within the days since, Leonard has posted various textual content interactions with Lionsgate PR, writing late final week that “Whereas we nonetheless won’t be on the very same web page, I’m deeply grateful to lastly really feel acknowledged and revered on this matter.”

On Saturday, Leonard—in an open letter he co-signed by Williams and Hance—made some concrete requests of Lionsgate. Primarily, he wrote, the trio would love “Retroactive + future residual funds to Heather, Michael and Josh for performing companies rendered within the unique BWP, equal to the sum that may’ve been allotted via SAG-AFTRA, had we had correct union or authorized illustration when the movie was made.”

Subsequent, they’d like “Significant session on any future Blair Witch reboot, sequel, prequel, toy, sport, journey, escape room, and so on.,” that makes use of the unique forged’s names or likenesses.

Lastly, they suggest that Lionsgate fund what they’re calling “The Blair Witch Grant.” The $60,000 grant would go to “an unknown/aspiring style filmmaker to help in making their first function movie.” (The determine is consultant of the $60,000 finances of the unique movie, Leonard notes, and is arguably a conservative ask—in line with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, that $60,000 then is equal to over $114K, immediately.)

“This can be a GRANT, not a improvement fund,” he writes, so Lionsgate “is not going to personal any of the underlying rights to the venture.”

In a subsequent social media put up, Leonard writes that that open letter and the eye it generated are “section 3ish of 13ish.”

“We’re simply getting began, and have LOTS of runway left to cowl,” he writes of his and his castmates’ efforts. And maybe this scrappy trio has an opportunity (extra of an opportunity, maybe, than their fictional counterparts had in Burkittsville). In any case, even of us like Jason Blum appear conscious of the magic the unique crew produced.

“I’m an enormous admirer of The Blair Witch Mission, which introduced the concept of discovered footage horror to mainstream audiences and have become a real cultural phenomenon,” Blum stated when his reboot plans had been introduced.

“I don’t assume there would have been a Paranormal Exercise,” Blum stated of his studio’s massively profitable discovered footage franchise. “had there not first been a Blair Witch.”