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An American horror film directed and written by Wes Craven, and the first film of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film features John Saxon, Heather Langenkamp, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund and Johnny Depp in his feature film debut. Set in the fictional Midwestern town of Springwood, Ohio, the plot revolves around several teenagers being terrorized in their nightmares by the ghost of a serial child murderer named Fred Krueger.

In February 2009, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Samuel Bayer was hired to direct the film. According to New Line production chief Toby Emmerich, Michael Bay advocated heavily for Bayer's hiring, as Bay, Bayer, and director David Fincher came up as commercial directors together. It is Bay's opinion that Bayer has the "the ability to capture the kind of seductive and unsettling imagery that would make Nightmare feel like a fresh, visually arresting moviegoing experience". In a June 9, 2009 interview, Craven expressed his displeasure in the remaking of his 1984 film, primarily because the filmmakers chose not to have him as a consultant to the film, unlike with the 2009 remake The Last House on the Left where he "shepherd it towards production". In contrast, Robert Englund, who portrayed Freddy throughout the film series, feels it is time for A Nightmare on Elm Street to be remade; Englund likes the idea of being able to "exploit the dreamscape" with CGI and other technologies that did not exist when Craven was making the original Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984.

Fuller and Form likened the new Nightmare film to their 2003 remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and retracted an earlier statement when they said they did not plan to "cherry pick" the best elements of the franchise, like they did with the reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise they released in 2009. Instead, the 2010 film will be more of a reimagining.The pair also explained that A Nightmare on Elm Street would have a different tone than the Friday the 13th remake. Form states, "I think a Friday the 13th movie like we made was really fun. You know, sex, drugs and rock and roll, and I think a Nightmare movie is not that." When asked why New Line was rebooting the Nightmare on Elm Street film series, Emmerich explained, "The Nightmare films are profoundly disturbing on a deep, human level because they're about our dreams. It's why we thought that we could reach an especially broad audience with a new film, since the feeling of having your dreams being invaded was something that would translate to any country and any culture.