‘Sleepy Hollow’ Remake to Explore Untapped Parts of the Source Material!!

The last few years have seen writer Lindsey Anderson Beer hard at work on her directorial debut, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines. Now that the film is just a little over a week away from its October 6 debut on Paramount+, the writer and helmer can turn her attention to other efforts. Staying in the realm of IP, Anderson Beer will next set her sights on a remake of the classic Washington Irving-penned novel-turned-movies, Sleepy Hollow. During a recent interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, the filmmaker commented on what will set her telling of the iconic spooky tale apart and how Pet Sematary: Bloodlines prepared her to make a reboot.

“Sleepy Hollow… You know, there are a lot of skill sets that are similar in terms of its beloved IP,” Anderson Beer said, drawing a parallel between Bloodlines and the story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. “It’s also the same kind of thing where when I was doing Bloodlines, I kept asking myself when I was doing the rewrites, “What would I want to know as a Pet Sematary fan? What are the questions left unanswered from the book? And what are the parts of the book that haven’t been explored in movies?’”

In Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, Anderson Beer explores the background of what happened before the Creeds arrived in Ludlow, Maine. Audiences will meet a young Jud Crandall (Jackson White) and learn the beginnings of the cursed burial ground and how it first affected the town. Speaking to this, Anderson Beer said, “For instance, the end of the book says that Jud is the guardian of the woods, and the book says that Jud’s experience with Timmy Baterman is the reason that the evil is even targeting him as an old man, that we know.” Using the specific chapter of Timmy Baterman’s return from the dead as the basis for Bloodlines, the filmmaker added, “There are so many things like that that aren’t explored in films, and that a lot of the fans don’t know because they haven’t read the book, or haven’t read the book for so much time.”

Lindsey Anderson Beer’s Vision for ‘Sleepy Hollow’

Irving’s legend is no stranger to film adaptations, having not only spawned Tim Burton’s 1999 Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken-led film Sleepy Hollow but also the beloved Disney animated feature, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. There was also the four-season running FOX series, Sleepy Hollow, which starred the likes of Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie. Promising to put her own spin on the story, Anderson Beer says, “The legends of Sleepy Hollow are so rich, and as I started doing the research about the Hudson Valley and true ghost stories, I just, I got addicted to that too.”