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Does the world need another take on The Blair Witch Project<\/em>? The groundbreaking 1999 movie, which starred Michael C. Williams<\/strong>, Joshua Leonard,<\/strong> and Rai Hance<\/strong> (then known as Heather Donahue), was lightning in a bottle, filmed for an estimated $60,000 during a famously grueling eight-day, oft-improvised shoot. It was a box office blockbuster, with a $248-million-plus theatrical release and two sequels\u2014three, if you count the revival horror-on-the-cheap expert Jason Blum<\/strong> announced a little more than a week ago. That latest news frustrated the Blair Witch<\/em> originals, who released an open letter Saturday asking for belated compensation for their long-ago work.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, this is MY face on a press release for a film being made by two major studios,\u201d Leonard wrote<\/a> on April 11, sharing an Instagram post<\/a> from Variety. (I should note here that the item Leonard referenced was not a press release, it was a news report<\/a> from CinemaCon, where Blum announced the reboot as part of a partnership with Lionsgate, which owns the Blair Witch IP.) \u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about it until a friend sent me a \u2018congrats\u2019 screenshot yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Leonard, after the film\u2019s success, the main cast was each paid $300,000 \u201cas a buyout for our ownership points … and NEVER saw another dime.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so proud of our little punk-rock movie, and I LOVE the fans who keep the flames burning,\u201d Leonard said of the film. \u201cBut at this point, it\u2019s 25 years of disrespect from the folks who\u2019ve pocketed the lion\u2019s share (pun intended) of the profits from OUR work, and that feels both icky and classless.\u201d (Vanity Fair reached out to Lionsgate for comment but has not received a response as of publication time.)<\/p>\n In a post the next day<\/a>, Leonard clarified that \u201cMoney isn\u2019t the point\u201d of his prior post, and acknowledged that \u201cWe signed contracts when we were kids, with no legal or union support. We were struggling artists, and the fact that we didn\u2019t have to worry about food\/rent for a while was as big a win as any of us could\u2019ve dreamed of.\u201d In the days since, Leonard has posted a number of text interactions with Lionsgate PR, writing late last week<\/a> that \u201cWhile we still might not be on the exact same page, I\u2019m deeply grateful to finally feel acknowledged and respected in this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n On Saturday, Leonard\u2014in an open letter<\/a> he co-signed by Williams and Hance\u2014made some concrete requests of Lionsgate. Primarily, he wrote, the trio would like \u201cRetroactive + future residual payments to Heather, Michael and Josh for acting services rendered in the original BWP, equivalent to the sum that would\u2019ve been allotted through SAG-AFTRA, had we had proper union or legal representation when the film was made.\u201d<\/p>\n Next, they\u2019d like \u201cMeaningful consultation on any future Blair Witch reboot, sequel, prequel, toy, game, ride, escape room, etc.,\u201d that uses the original cast\u2019s names or likenesses.<\/p>\n Finally, they propose that Lionsgate fund what they\u2019re calling \u201cThe Blair Witch Grant.\u201d The $60,000 grant would go to \u201can unknown\/aspiring genre filmmaker to assist in making their first feature film.\u201d (The figure is representative of the $60,000 budget of the original film, Leonard notes, and is arguably a conservative ask\u2014according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>, that $60,000 then is equivalent to over $114K, today.)<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a GRANT, not a development fund,\u201d he writes, so Lionsgate \u201cwill not own any of the underlying rights to the project.\u201d<\/p>\n