Believe it or not, there has been a recent legal battle surrounding the rights to Children of the Corn. A producer named Donald P. Borchers has been locked in conflict with Dimension Films over the right to make future films in the cinematic franchise. Lord knows why, as I’m pretty sure they are the only ones with any sort of investment in that series.
I’m not going to go over the specifics. If you’re super curious about it all, you can gets the particulars of the on-going war here. Just know that Borchers REALLY wants to make his own outing and that the Weinsteins, those wondrous heads of Dimension Films and The Weinstein Company, are currently sitting on a completed cheapie DTV outing, Children of the Corn: Runaway, which they rushed into production to keep a hold on the rights. The company famously lost the rights to the Halloween franchise recently because they let them collect dust for too long, resulting in them crapping out two more half-assed Children of the Corn and Hellraiser films so the same thing wouldn’t happen to those rights.
None of that particular matters to me. What does matter to me is that Stephen King, who authored the original short story upon which this trashy franchise has been based, has finally had enough. Since I’m still laughing too hard about it all, I’ll defer to JoBlo to explain the hilarious latest turn of events…
“Regardless of who currently holds which rights, if anyone wants to make a CHILDREN OF THE CORN movie without King’s direct approval they’re going to have to move quickly. King recently filed to terminate the transfer of his licenses for several of his older movies, including CHILDREN OF THE CORN. That termination will be effective as of September 1, 2018. After that time, any company that wants to make a sequel, remake, spin-off, or whatever of CHILDREN OF THE CORN is going to have to contact King about it and make a new deal with him.”
Priceless. King has famously disapproved of this film series ever since the first one arrived on the scene in 1984. While I personally don’t have much of a problem with that film itself, there’s no denying that each subsequent sequel has generally been worse than the last. How many of these suckers are there now? Counting the aforementioned Runaway, the tally currently sits at 10. That’s right, this series has somehow managed to surpass the likes of Child’s Play and A Nightmare On Elm Street over the years. Don’t ask me how. Regardless, King has finally put his foot down and if I had to guess, he’s not going to be okaying any more such films in the foreseeable future.
