Midnight is finalizing a deal for Dennis Iliadis to direct the redo, with Adam Alleca on board to rewrite. Craven is producing with Midnight cohort Marianne Maddalena and Sean S. Cunningham. Latter produced the 1972 original.

Craven said the remake will retain the spirit of the original, about killers who inadvertently seek refuge with the parents of one of their victims, but aim for a more realistic tone.

"The first one was arch -- especially in relation to the killers," Craven said.

He said they chose Iliadis because they found his pic Hardcore "so compelling and real."

Alleca has another project in development at Midnight called Home, and had previously approached Craven about revisiting The People Under the Stairs, his 1991 pic. There are no plans yet for that to be remade, but Craven hasn't ruled it out. He recently revisited his 1977 pic, The Hills Have Eyes, in a sequel for Fox Atomic.

"It's kind of working its way back," he said. He said part of the reason he's revisiting earlier films is that those are ones over which he had more ownership control, and partly it's because he figured, "Why not?" Craven expects to begin production on "The Last House on the Left" early next year.