Surprise! Lionsgate‘s upcoming Blair Witch had initially been marketed as The Woods, but at its first public screening at San Diego Comic Con on Friday it was revealed instead to be a surprise sequel to the 1999 smash hit The Blair Witch Project.
Back in May we reported on the newly released teaser trailer for Lionsgate’s The Woods, an upcoming horror film that was being touted by the handful of journalists who had seen it as one of the scariest movies ever made. Directed by indie-horror fave Adam Wingard and written by his You’re Next and The Guest collaborator Simon Barrett, The Woods was initially marketed as and presumed by most to be an original / standalone film, though little was revealed about its plot.
But those sneaky devils pulled one over on us and dropped the mic at the first public screening of the movie on Friday night at San Diego Comic Con International, when it was revealed that The Woods has really been the third installment of the ‘Blair Witch’ franchise all along — a sequel to be exact — and that its real title is Blair Witch.
Minds were blown:
Sneaky marketing to be sure, but personally, I don’t hate this guy’s idea:
Some online fans seemed thrilled to learn of the big reveal:
Others, less so:
Sadly, I missed the SDCC screening of the The Woods a.k.a. Blair Witch because I got sidetracked taking drunk selfies with Jared Padalecki (true story). The initial response/reviews from those who were there however, have been positive, and the official trailer (above) looks insanely scary (if a little familiar story-wise).
I was looking forward to an original story when I thought it was just The Woods, but I’m a fan of The Blair Witch Project and of the Wingard/Barrett duo (I’m of the camp that will pretty much watch anything they create) so I’ll be watching Blair Witch when it hits theaters in September to see what the pair have done with it and if it lives up to the hype.
What do you think of the reveal and the new trailer for BLAIR WITCH?
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