The 1998 college slasher flick Urban Legend is the next horror film in line for the reboot treatment, this time for the social media age. The massive success of Wes Craven's Scream in 1996 famously led to a resurgence in slasher films, especially those centered on teens or college students. Scream would of course participate in that boom by becoming a franchise, releasing Scream 2 in 1997 and Scream 3 in 2000. Among the wave of Scream imitators though, the biggest at the time were I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend.
Directed by Jamie Blanks, the original Urban Legend was set on the campus of Pendleton University, an upper class private school in New England. The plot centers on the students in Professor Wexler's folklore class, who find their subject matter becoming all too real after a series of murders imitating urban legends takes place. Urban Legend was savaged by critics, but performed well at the box office. Today it boasts a good-sized cult following.
Now, Deadline reports that Urban Legend will soon receive a movie reboot, courtesy of Screen Gems. The film is said to be on the fast track.
This new Urban Legend movie will be written and directed by Colin Minihan (What Keeps You Alive), a rising name on the indie horror scene. Plot details are understandably scarce at this early stage, but things will once again center on a group of college students, although they're planned to be more diverse this time. That makes sense, as the cast of the first Urban Legend was almost entirely white. In a modern twist, the kills in this reboot will be based on "urban legends linked to the darkest corners of social media." It's a bit unclear what that means from the wording used, but it seems possible that creepypastas could play a role.
Right now, it's also unclear what, if any, connection the Urban Legend reboot will have to the original movie, or its two prior sequels. It wouldn't necessarily need to though, as the Urban Legend franchise, such as it is, centers on new characters in a new location each film, and is basically a series of standalone stories. It'll be interesting to see who gets cast, as one of the reasons Urban Legend is remembered today is its cast full of current/future stars. Jared Leto, Joshua Jackson, Tara Reid, Rebecca Gayheart, Alicia Witt, Michael Rosenbaum, and Danielle Harris all made appearances in the film. One wonders if the new Urban Legend will try to incorporate a few horror icons into the cast too, as both Robert Englund and Brad Dourif played small roles in the original.
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