spent most of that Thanksgiving break immersing myself in the three scripts and agonizing over what to do. On the one hand, here was a golden opportunity to finally get a feature film under my belt. On the other hand, it was an extremely risky proposition: Sequels often fail, I was not a fan of the first film, and the idea of making a Blair Witch sequel was already drawing venom from fans of the original and from film critics. This was no small art movie that I could make under the radar.
As I slogged through all three scripts over the long weekend, I came to a sobering conclusion: They all really sucked. The main problem I had was that each screenplay took up the story where the first movie left off. They all continued to rely on the conceit that the viewer is watching actual “found” documentary footage by “real” documentary filmmakers. I thought this was a huge mistake, because the sequel, unlike the original, would not have the advantage of emerging seemingly out of nowhere. The actors had been all over the airwaves and were now quasi celebrities. Although some people were still convinced The Blair Witch Project was a real documentary the media gatekeepers had widely dissected and celebrated the marketing hoax. After conferring with my wife, Loren, and my manager, Margaret Riley I decided to pass. I told Artisan that I thought it was a huge mistake to be traveling down the shaky-cam road for a second time. I said they needed to put the production on hold and come up with a fresh approach—no matter how long that took. “Thanks, but no thanks,” was the message I gave them. Figuring that they would not abandon three scripts that they probably shelled out big bucks for, I assumed that was the end of my involvement.
To my surprise, they actually listened to what I had to say and asked me what approach I would take. Although I was not prepared to pitch an idea, I mentioned a thought I had while reading the three scripts. “Look, a lot of people don’t like the idea that you’re doing a sequel. Besides, the jig is up—most intelligent moviegoers and certainly all of the critics now know that the first movie relied on a hoax. The ‘found footage’ shtick just won’t work a second time.” I also explained that Blair Witch had become one of the most parodied films of all time, by everything from Saturday Night Live to dozens of TV-commercial send-ups. I didn’t want to risk making a film that would be seen asjust one more self-conscious takeoff of an already self-conscious movie. There was no way I was making another “fake” documentary So, instead of doing a sequel to the movie, I suggested, why not do a sequel to the real-life hoopla surrounding the movie’s success? “Let’s make fun of the whole Blair Witch phenomenon: the mania that attended the movie’s release, the media participation in the marketing hoax, and the fact that many people left the theaters still thinking they saw a real documentary.” My way of playing with reality would be to satirize the reality of the Blair Witch craze, as opposed to pretending that the movie itself was real.
They went for it.
I sketched out the idea over the next twenty-four hours. The film would follow five “real” obsessed fans of the first Blair Witch film as they go back to Burkittsville to determine if the first movie was a hoax or a real documentary. In the end, they get entangled in some real-life murders because they, like America, can no longer distinguish between fiction and reality. It would be an edgy, adult satire with a horrifying twist at the end.
Again, to my surprise, Artisan liked the pitch. I was starting to warm up to the idea of actually doing it, and I assumed that by buying my pitch, they would push back the production’s start date at least six months so I could write a script—after all, this was an idea that I was tossing out off the top of my head on December 1, 1999. The shoot was to begin in just two months.
I was wrong.
Lisa Black
Margaret Duffy
Erin Bowman
Kate Christensen
Steve Kluger
Jake Bible
Jan Irving
G.L. Snodgrass
Chris Taylor
Jax