Kevin Bacon responds to Robert Englund calling for him to take over as Freddy Krueger

Kevin Bacon has responded to the suggestion that he take over as iconic horror villain Freddy Krueger.

The role - one of the most instantly recognisable in horror - was played by Robert Englund throughout the original Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

HIs last appearance in the role was in 2003's Freddy vs Jason, which saw him face off against Jason from the Friday the 13th franchise.

In 2017, Englund announced that he would be retiring from the role.

He said: "I'm too old to do another Freddy now. If I do a fight scene now it's got to be real minimal because I can't snap my head for eight different takes and different angles. My spine gets sore.

"I can still be mean and scary, but I'm mostly relegated now to sort of Van Helsing roles, old doctors and sh*t. So it's fun that the last moment of me ever playing Freddy is a wink to the audience."

The 76-year-old actor has since spoken about who he thinks might be a good fit to take over as the dream-haunting menace.

Paul Archuleta/Getty Images

And his choice was none other than Kevin Bacon, who also had a role as a teenage victim of Jason in Friday the 13th.

Bacon does have a wealth of horror experience, including You Should Have Left, Stir of Echoes, and Tremors.

But what has Bacon said about the possibility of taking on the role of Krueger?

Jason Mendez/Getty Images for Netflix

While speaking to Screen Rant to promote his movie One Way, Bacon said: "Never say never. I mean, I say, 'Never say never,' but I really do follow that. There's very few things that I go, 'Nah, nah.' You just never know."

So does that mean that Bacon will be donning the infamous bladed glove? Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Other actors have taken on the role of Krueger since Englund retired.

In 2010's reboot of Nightmare on Elm Street, Krueger was played by Jackie Earle Haley.

However the 2010 remake was not well received, getting a critic score of just 14 percent on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Englund returned to the screen when he took on the role of Victor Creel in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things.

In a fourth wall breaking moment, Englund was on screen while characters in the show were talking about, you guessed it, Freddy Krueger.

So you have characters talking about the iconic character when the man who played him is actually on screen.