The filmmakers behind The Blair Witch Project have returned with a new found-footage horror film that trades the Maryland woods for the online world. The Influencer Project, now in theaters, follows real-life influencer Chiara King as she travels to Copenhagen to give her followers an inside look at the «glamorous business of online fame.»
What begins as a documentary about her pursuit of 10 million social media followers turns into something far darker when a menacing stalker begins closing in. The fictional documentary blurs the line between «content and evidence, follower and predator, fact and fiction,» as cameras capture her every move and her millions of followers react to her increasingly dire situation.
Producers Gregg Hale and Eduardo Sanchez, who worked on the original Blair Witch Project — Hale as a producer and Sanchez as a director — sat down for an exclusive interview about the new film and what it owes to the 1999 found-footage blockbuster. They also teased next year's Blair Witch Project reboot, which is set for release in 2027 and is being directed by Dylan Clark.
Sanchez said the pervasiveness of cameras in modern life made The Influencer Project easier to explain narratively than the original. «Blair Witch took place in 1994,» he said, noting that star Heather Donahue carried a 16mm film camera because that was the standard for documentaries at the time, while a Hi8 video camera served as a cheap behind-the-scenes tool. «And we just told them to just shoot everything.»
He recalled that the original team had to invent reasons for Donahue to keep filming, many of which had nothing to do with documenting the Blair Witch mythology. «And so you cut to nowadays, you don't have to worry about that at all. There are cameras everywhere. It's easier to tell the story.»
That same logic is expected to shape the upcoming Blair Witch reboot. «If you're setting a found-footage movie in this era, then that's the language that we're living with: social media influencers, vertical video, surveillance cameras, cop body cams,» Sanchez said. «So we don't want to say too much about the new Blair Witch movie. But yeah, I mean eventually if you're making it in this era, you have to play with the toys that are available.»
Hale added that the approach is not about chasing a format. «It always starts with what is the story and when is the story set and what are the characters doing and how does that affect how it would be seen?» he said. «It's all based on the time period.»
While The Blair Witch Project hinged on a literal monster in the dark, The Influencer Project focuses on more grounded terror — the nightmares that can come with living your life online and the audience's reaction to it. Hale described the connection between the two films as spiritual. «In The Blair Witch Project, they chose to go into the woods and there was bad shit in the woods,» he said. «But now you don't even have to make the choice to enter that wilderness. We're living in that internet wilderness all the time.»
He noted that every «disgusting, despicable thing» said in the movie has been said to Chiara King in real life, drawing directly from her experiences as an influencer. «There's always somebody lying in wait ready to either interact with you in a good way or interact with you in a terrible way,» Hale said.
The Influencer Project is in theaters now. The Blair Witch Project reboot is scheduled for release in 2027.