Artisan Plots Blair Witch Sequel

That screamy girl with the blue hat may be coming again to theaters near you - not to mention the latest in American mythology: the Blair Witch.

The sleeper hit of the decade, The Blair Witch Project, will be followed up with a sequel and a prequel expanding on the horror tale that became one of the most successful low-budget films ever made.

Producers are already scouting locations for Blair Witch 2, to be released in October. A prequel, which will get into the witch's early history, will follow in summer 2001.

Artisan Entertainment, which bought Blair Witch and the sequel rights for $1 million at last year's Sundance film festival, hopes to rekindle the magic that made the first film a $140 million smash.

"I think it was the best million dollars anybody ever spent, even when you see all the numbers in the 'dot com' world," Amir Malin, Artisan president, said Thursday. "I don't think you've ever seen real returns, as opposed to paper returns, like Blair Witch.

The original Blair Witch was one of the most profitable movies ever. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez and their company, Haxan Films, shot the film for about $60,000, with Artisan kicking in $260,000 more in postproduction costs, Malin said.

The sequel and prequel each will have budgets of about $7 million to $10 million, still small by Hollywood standards.

Shooting is scheduled to begin in early February for Blair Witch 2 under the direction of documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger.

The movie will not necessarily follow the pattern of the original, told through footage supposedly shot by three fictitious filmmakers who disappeared in the woods while making a documentary about a legendary witch, according to Malin.

Artisan is keeping under wraps the plots and other details about the followup films, including whether the three characters from the original will return.

Myrick, Sanchez and their partners with Haxan will be executive producers on Blair Witch 2 but are not directing the movie because they are working on another film, Malin said.

The Haxan team will return to write and direct Blair Witch 3 which will cover episodes in the witch's history from the 18th century through the 1990s, leading up to the faux disappearance of the three filmmakers, Malin added.