Jackie Earle Haley will be the new Freddy Kreuger
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After ‘Watchmen,’ its clear that Jackie Earle Haley knows how to wear a hat while piling up a body count. Now we’ll see how he does with a hat and a striped sweater ...
In San Francisco, at WonderCon, Haley said he was still chewing on the idea of strapping on finger-talons and stepping into Robert Englund’s signature role of Freddy Kreuger in a revival of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street.’
Now, according to Dave McNary of Variety, the new horror show is go with the man who played Rorschach locked in for duty as the disfigured predator from beyond the grave. Haley was a child actor, of course, best known for ‘Bad News Bears’ and ‘Breaking Away,’ but then his career evaporated. His big comeback (it earned him an Oscar nomination) was his role as a sniveling sex offender in ‘Little Children’ in 2006. Hmmm. That filmography is getting just a bit disturbing, isn’t it?
Here’s an excerpt from the Variety story:
Jackie Earle Haley is going to Elm Street, signing to star as iconic killer Freddy Krueger in New Line and Platinum Dunes’ relaunch of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street.’ Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form are producing with John Ricard co-producing. Samuel Bayer will direct from Wesley Strick’s script, with lensing set to begin next month in Chicago. New Line decided last year to relaunch the movie series centered on the iconic killer, who haunts the dreams of teenagers and kills them in their sleep. Krueger was originally played by Robert Englund in the 1984 original, spawning nine films and two TV series in what was New Line’s most lucrative franchise until ‘The Lord of the Rings.’
Read the rest of Variety’s story on the new Freddy Krueger.
-- Geoff Boucher
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Top photo: Jackie Earle Haley. Credit: Jennifer S. Altman / For The Times
UPDATE: A very early version of this post had Freddy’s name spelled wrong in the headline.