The Blair Witch Project’s Heather Donahue Confirms: She’s Sitting Out the Reboot
“I genuinely wish everyone involved well. But preserving my autonomy mattered more to me,” Donahue writes on Facebook.
About six weeks ago, we checked in with the latest Blair Witch movie, which is now seeing some movement two years after it was first announced at CinemaCon back in 2024. Like this year’s Obsession — which just surpassed the original Blair Witch as the highest-grossing festival pickup of all time — The Blair Witch Project arrived at exactly the right time to shake up the then-staid horror genre when it premiered in 1999. Also like Obsession, the film’s success left a sour taste in the mouths of some of those who made it, and who later petitioned for their share of the millions it raked in at the box office.
That brings us back to Heather Donahue, the star of The Blair Witch Project and the only member of the original cast to decline an agreement that brought her co-stars Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams onto Blumhouse and Lionsgate’s “new vision” for the film as executive producers. This came after Donahue, Leonard and Williams sent an open letter to the studio asking for residuals and “meaningful consultation” on any future Blair Witch-related projects. At the time, it appeared as if Donahue was either left out of or turned down that deal.
Deadline has an update to this evolving situation, as Donahue (who also goes by the name Rei Hance) has come forward — or, at least commented on Facebook — about her lack of involvement in the new movie. “There seems to be some willful confusion about my involvement with the reboot,” she wrote, adding, “I want to clarify that I am not participating.”
“I was offered an agreement that, for me personally, raised difficult long-term questions about rights, future technological use of identity and voice, the ability to speak freely, and compensation,” she said. “Ultimately, it just wasn’t something I felt comfortable signing. I genuinely wish everyone involved well. But preserving my autonomy mattered more to me.”
Donahue’s comment is presumably in response to a recent interview with James Wan and Jason Blum on IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast, in which Wan said that “getting all the original people that were involved in the original Blair Witch, getting their blessing and getting them involved ... was very important for all of us” — to which Donahue basically said, “what do you mean, all?”
Donahue’s “future technological use of identity and voice” comment also hints at a potential clause in the agreement between the trio and Lionsgate/Blumhouse giving the company the rights to their likenesses and voices as they appeared in the film, possibly even for AI use. (It definitely implies that the deal came with a non-disclosure and/or non-disparagement agreement attached, which is pretty standard as far as these things go.)
Talking about contracts and compensation, especially in public, is a risky move in the film industry: Just look at the divisive response to Obsession art director Sally Choi’s post about her pay for that film. Luckily for Donahue, she doesn’t care about all that — she retired from acting in 2008.
