‘Dream Warriors’ Director Chuck Russell Thinks Jim Carrey Could Play Freddy Krueger in a New ‘Elm Street’

Freddy Kreuger is one of the most iconic horror characters to ever grace the screen. Even more than 40 years after the original A Nightmare on Elm Street release, and more than three decades since the last decent-quality entry in the franchise, the character remains extremely recognizable in the pop culture zeitgeist, and is typically regarded as one of the “big three” when discussing slasher movie icons, along with Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th and Michael Myers from Halloween.

While Michael Myers last appeared just two years ago in the finale for David Gordon Green’s trilogy in Halloween Ends and Jason is getting a new look and new interest with the upcoming Crystal Lake series, A Nightmare on Elm Street has been dead in the water for 15 years, when Samuel Bayer remade that original film with Jackie Earle Haley playing Freddy Kreuger.

via: Bloody Disgusting

Chuck Russell, director and co-writer of the fan favorite sequel A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, is interested in returning to the world of Freddy Krueger — especially if he can reunite with stars Patricia Arquette and Robert Englund.

“I’d love to do another Elm Street if there was the full support of everybody,” Russell told Dread Central’s Development Hell podcast. “Patricia Arquette has said she’d like to do it again in the press. Very interesting, because she didn’t talk about it a lot earlier in her career. She was so terrific and went on to have such a great career — I think that’s a good idea too.”

He continues, “I still think Robert, for me, is the only Freddy. Were I to be involved in a new Elm Street, A, I’d be delighted, and B, my first goal would be to get Robert involved.”

With Englund having gone on record as saying his Freddy days are behind him, Russell thinks Jim Carrey — with whom he collaborated on The Mask — could pull off the iconic role.

“Jim, in my opinion, could almost do anything if he put his heart into it,” Russell said. “For Jim to do it, we’d have to do something that was another leap in the Elm Street series — a little bit like what Wes did with his very meta New Nightmare. I think Jim would only consider it, and I’d only consider harnessing Jim, if there was a bold new direction for Elm Street.”

Russell recently returned to horror with a reimagining of the 1986 horror cult classic Witchboard, now on VOD.

Meanwhile, Dream Warriors received a 4K restoration for the new Nightmare on Elm Street 4K collection.