Blumhouse’s remake of cult 1990s film The Craft now has a release date, and it’s coming sooner than we’d have thought. Likely owing to the COVID-19 crisis, The Craft will hit streaming first on October 27th via Prime Video, which will make it one of the highlights of an already crowded season for horror fans this year.
The reboot has been on the cards since at least 2015, and will roughly follow the plot of the original Andrew Fleming movie, wherein a group of high school girls band together as a coven of witches. The 1990s Craft is fondly remembered for its era fashions and some great performances from Neve Campbell, Fairuza Balk, Rachel True and Robin Tunney.
In the case of the Blumhouse version, Zoe Lister-Jones has writing and directing credits, and comes off the back of a strong television background and the independent production Band Aid. New cast members, meanwhile, include Cailee Spaeny, Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone and Zoey Luna, as well as David Duchovny, Michelle Monaghan and Julian Grey.
Although the new Craft has ties to the 1990s version, namely producers such as Doug Wilk, who’s very excited about the fresh take on the material, and director Fleming, former star Neve Campbell opted out of being involved with it. To date, we don’t have too many details on how Lister-Jones will update the property for 2020, although it wouldn’t be surprising if technology and social media plays a key role in the witchcraft.
The release date announcement may be a bit of a surprise, but it’s worth noting that shooting wrapped up on the project back in February this year, meaning that it’s probably on course for its planned schedule, give or take the delays caused by the pandemic. Indeed, given that there’s only a month to go until we can stream The Craft, we’d expect there to be a trailer arriving soon, so watch this space for more.