17 years later, secret 'Blair Witch' sequel revealed at Comic-Con
A 17-years-later sequel to The Blair Witch Project debuted in a surprise screening at Comic-Con -- view the trailer above -- but the movie's been hiding in plain sight since early 2015.
That's when director Adam Wingard booked a gig helming the Lionsgate horror feature The Woods, along with writer Simon Barrett. The two had previously collaborated on V/H/S and its sequel, both anthology horror films that employ the found footage style popularized by the original Blair Witch.
The Woods didn't surface again until May 2016, when a trailer popped up loaded with glowing quotes from media who had seen the movie. It was nothing unusual, save for the high praise in those quotes.
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It adopted a new title at Comic-Con -- Blair Witch -- as the screening and trailer made clear the connection to the 1999 hit.
The story picks up 15 years after the events of the original film. James (James Allen McCune) and several of his college friends head to Maryland's Black Hills Forest to look for Heather, James' sister.
Heather was one of the three stars of The Blair Witch Project. She's missing because terrible things happened. James doesn't know that, but he and his friends are going to find out.
The 2016 Blair Witch surprise at Comic-Con faintly echoes the splash made by its predecessor in the run-up to its July 1999 release.
The Blair Witch Project brought one of the first viral marketing campaigns to a then-young internet. Snippets of video, newspaper mock-ups and falsified histories hyped up audiences, who questioned the movie's authenticity. No one was certain if it was real or not.
The movie's runaway success -- almost $250 million at the global box office, from a $60,000 budget -- was instrumental in the explosion of the found footage horror genre, though it never experienced the franchise popularity of notable successor Paranormal Activity. A failed sequel in 2000 ditched the shaky cam approach and Blair Witch seemed to fizzle out.
The 2016 sequel -- we'll forget the 2000 one existed, as Lionsgate seems to have done -- is an attempt to bring it back.
Topics Film
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
