Given Hollywood’s penchant to pick apart every legendary story, from King Arthur to the ongoing Snow White race, there are two campfire tales I’m thoroughly surprised have not become major film franchises yet: the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot. Sure, there have been one-off attempts at diving into these stories. (Raise your hand if you saw Jay Russell's 2007 adventure The Legend of the Water Horse.) But the ape-like legend's about to get a big-screen treatment that will try to bring the hairy star of some infamous, grainy video footage into the limelight.
Blair Witch Project director Eduardo Sanchez has been hired to helm a Bigfoot picture for Haxan Films and Amber Entertainment. Currently titled Exists, the film is eyeing an October start date and, according to Variety, will follow a group of campers who are terrorized by a Bigfoot-type creature during a cabin vacation held deep in the woods. No word on whether Sanchez will rely on the shaky, hand-held camera techniques he employed for Blair Witch, but that could feed into the myth as to why we're not getting a good look at the creature on film.
That premise also makes it sound closer to the start of a new horror franchise than a tense exploration of the decades-old mystery surrounding the Bigfoot creature. Even Sanchez’s quote about this being “the first in a trilogy exploring and reinventing the Bigfoot myth" suggests horror franchise, which shouldn’t surprise too much given the fact that Sanchez helmed Blair Witch. Silly me, I was hoping for something a little more sophisticated, and maybe this will turn out to be more Insidious than Rec [2]. The trade says the new Bigfoot will film near Austin, and will begin casting largely unknown actors soon.
