Wes Craven

Started by MacGuffin, August 10, 2004, 10:50:56 AM

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MacGuffin

Craven pilots 'Red Eye' at DreamWorks

Horrormeister Wes Craven has boarded the flight to direct the thriller "Red Eye" for DreamWorks. Benderspink is producing along with Bonnie Curtis, Jim Lemley and Marianne Maddalena. The film centers on a woman held captive by a stranger on an airliner who threatens to kill her father unless she helps him arrange the assassination of a wealthy businessman. Carl Ellsworth wrote the screenplay. Mark Sourian, Marc Haimes and Jeanne Algood are the execs overseeing for the studio. Craven is best known for such frightfests as the "Scream" trilogy and "A Nightmare on Elm Street," which he also wrote. He also directed the Meryl Streep starrer "Music of the Heart." Craven recently finished shooting "Cursed."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

McAdams will fly Air Craven with Murphy
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Wes Craven is looking to Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy to topline his DreamWorks thriller "Red Eye." McAdams has closed a deal -- her richest to date with a $1 million payday -- and Murphy is in negotiations to star in the project, due to start lensing Nov. 8 in Los Angeles.

McAdams will star as a woman held captive by a stranger (Murphy) on an airliner. The man threatens to kill her father unless she helps him arrange the assassination of a wealthy businessman. Craven is helming from a script by Carl Ellsworth.
 
Craven's producing partner, Marianne Maddalena, is producing along with Chris Bender. DreamWorks-based producer Bonnie Curtis is executive producing along with Jim Lemley, Mason Novick and J.C. Spink. Studio executives Mark Sourian, Marc Haimes and Jeanne Allgood are overseeing at DreamWorks for production topper Adam Goodman.

The project marks a change in direction for Craven from his previous work on the films that made him famous including the "Scream" franchise and "A Nightmare on Elm Street." "Red Eye" is a straightforward dramatic thriller, and Craven said he welcomes the new genre to his resume.

"It's the first opportunity I've had to do a film like this," he said. "My producer, Marianne, has always been saying, 'We have to get you to do a thriller.' And this movie is perfect; it's almost like a chamber piece, in a way. It's a real director's piece and a real actor's piece. Both Marianne and I are feeling like a kid in a candy store. It's a great script, wonderful studio and wonderful actors."

Those actors need to have range, Craven added. "The kickoff to the story line is that these characters have an immediate and a very intense attraction to one another, and I could immediately see those two together. But they also have a long way to go in other directions, which calls for actors with flex and range and they both are capable of that. And we are catching them both at a great moment -- both are emerging on true stardom."

McAdams, who recently starred in two successful films, "Mean Girls" and "The Notebook," is repped by manager Shelley Browning at Magnolia Entertainment, the Gersh Agency and attorneys Howard Fishman and David Matlof. She next stars in the upcoming film "Wedding Crashers."

Murphy has a role in the anticipated "Batman Begins" opposite Christian Bale for Warner Bros. Pictures and helmer Christopher Nolan. He most recently starred in a string of films including "Cold Mountain," "Girl With a Pearl Earring," "Intermission" and Danny Boyles' breakout zombie film "28 Days Later." He's repped by UTA, the Lisa Richards Agency in London and the law firm Offer, Weber and Dern. He starts filming Neil Jordan's "Breakfast on Pluto" next week.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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ElPandaRoyal

Am I the only one who never really liked Wes Craven movies?
Si

cine


modage

Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.


mogwai

ENOUGH!

yes elpanda, you're the only one

socketlevel

the one last hit that spent you...

MacGuffin

Craven on another Elm Street
More Freddy in the future?

Although Wes Craven was only directly involved on three of the eight films featuring famed horror boogeyman Freddy Kruger, the story has always been close to his heart. Originally inspired by a dark man in a red and green sweater that the young Craven saw out the window of the house he grew up in, Craven created a character that has become a part of pop culture infamy.

Now, 21 years after the first Nightmare on Elm Street hit theaters in 1984, the child murdering psychopath that haunts the dreams of the children of Elm Street is just as popular as ever. 2003's Freddy Vs. Jason revived the character and it seems that a sequel to that will happen in the not-too-distant future.

Elm Street creator Wes Craven was on hand to talk to press this weekend about his most recent project, Red Eye. IGN FilmForce managed to sneak in a few Elm Street questions. Although the director has indicated in the past that he is done with Kruger, he is no longer ruling it out. "You know, anything is possible. But it would have to be some terrific concept and some special moment in my career."

Few argue that the original Nightmare is still the best of the franchise. The biggest flaw in the film is the terribly cheesy final moment in which a bad body double mannequin of Nancy's mother is pulled through the tiny window in the top of the red door. Craven has criticized the ending many times, but says that he has no plans to re-edit or change the film should New Line ultimately decide to do an anniversary release of Nightmare on Elm Street. "No. You know, better to move forward."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Craven to Write and Direct New Horror Pic
Source: Variety

Wes Craven has made a deal with Rogue Pictures to write and direct a new horror project, says Variety. He's also formed Midnight Pictures, a Rogue-based company that will make horror flicks with budgets under $15 million.

Craven has hired Marianne Maddalena, who's produced many of Craven's films, to run Midnight Pictures. Plans call for the duo to produce Midnight Pictures projects and to also make films separately, with Maddalena developing her own slate.

"It is rooted in the supernatural with a 16-year old central character, but it's more 'Sixth Sense' than a slasher film," Craven said about his new film. "It's appalling to me that you have to go back to 1994 to find an original that I wrote and directed, so this is very important to me."

New project will be released by Rogue, but not under Midnight Pictures. Craven hopes to shoot next spring.

The first film under the Midnight Pictures banner will be the remake of his 1972 debut The Last House on the Left, which Rogue co-presidents Andrew Karpen and Rona bought last month.

Rogue, the genre division of Universal-based Focus Features, is also eyeing Craven-directed titles Shocker and People Under the Stairs for possible remakes Craven would oversee with the new company. Both films are Universal-owned library titles.

Craven's genre landmarks include the "Scream" trilogy and "Nightmare on Elm Street" series.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Wes Craven Reveals What Scares Him — And One Shocking Upcoming Project
Legendary horror director longs to make a less messy movie.
Source: MTV

For a man who makes his living from depicting gruesome death, Wes Craven is a pretty nice guy.

Granted, he's spent much of his life dreaming up mutant cannibals ("The Hills Have Eyes"), blade-fingered dream stalkers ("A Nightmare on Elm Street"), ghost-faced serial killers ("Scream"), and various other monsters and maniacs, and his latest production is a sequel to the 2006 remake of 1977's "The Hills Have Eyes."

But what Craven, 67, really craves is ... something a little less messy. Something for the whole family. Maybe a mystery. Or how about a nice romantic comedy? Because even a horrormeister likes a change of pace — especially when he never planned to be a horrormeister in the first place ...

MTV: So what scares you?

Wes Craven: Almost any front page of The New York Times these days. The Bush administration. You know, the honest answer is that I make movies about things that scare me. If you sit down to write something, you say, "Let's see, what will be scary?" You've got to think about things that are in your mind. Those situations when you're dealing with human beings that are violent rather than reasonable, and they're smart and they see you as a target. Madness. Nightmares. I don't think I have any fears that aren't shared by a lot of people — that's probably why my films do well.

MTV: Agatha Christie used to come up with murder mystery plots from her dreams. Do you keep a writing pad by the bed to remember yours?

Craven: I actually do, and certainly some of my films — like, "Nightmare on Elm Street" was written like that. And I do write my dreams down, not laboriously, every morning, but from years of writing down my dreams, I have very good recall of them. Like "The People Under the Stairs" was almost entirely from a dream, the outline, the basic story. The opening scene was giving me a lot of trouble, but I woke up realizing that I had just dreamed the whole thing, so I went back to sleep and re-dreamed it, and then got up and wrote it down for four hours, and there it was. And I dream in film language — dissolves, colors — so that helps. Some things just come through the window, you don't know where they're coming from, but they're strong.

MTV: What about everyday life? Stephen King says he gets most of his ideas from just living in a small town.

Craven: A couple went to a charity event with us, and they had left their two [teenage] kids at home alone for the first time, and I said, "OK, you're going to come home — you see fire engines as you go, you see the neighborhood smoking, you realize it's on your block, your house is burned down, and your two kids are there, giving you the finger, because you left them alone." They were looking at me in shock, and I'm rattling this off by instinct. I'm always thinking, how can something take a really strange turn and still be scary?

MTV: Do you prefer to film your own ideas, or do you like tweaking others?

Craven: The original "Scream" script was a little gem, and I think the only invention on that was devising what the character looked like. Kevin Williamson had written a character — a "Person in a Ghost Mask" — and he never revealed literally who it was. But I knew as a director, well, you've got to be looking at this person, so they might be wearing a mask, but you've got to see who it is just from their clothes and everything else. So we came up with a costume that covered every inch of the person, and we had to cast people more or less the same height.

MTV: Do you think there's more of a mainstream acceptance of horror films now?

Craven: I think it kind of started with "Alien" and "Silence of the Lambs," where directors who normally did conventional films took it on and did really great jobs. And the other thing that's happened that I've noticed ... [During] the first half of my career, if I went into a meeting at a studio, you could see people talking to each other, "He must be really sick." They didn't go to see those kinds of films; they did them because they knew they made money. Now, typically I'll be dealing with people who saw "The Hills Have Eyes" when they were 13 and that's why they decided to go into the film business. That's a whole different thing, see? They're sophisticated about the genre and they don't think it's a horrible thing. You get much more support and get better releases because the studios are now fans.

MTV: That's funny, because you don't typically think of people who mostly make romantic comedies as being love sick.

Craven: That's true! [He laughs.] And the way I got into making horror films was a pure accident. Somebody literally said, "We have some money, the backers want a scary film, can you do a scary film?" I said, "Fine, whatever." I think if they had asked for a funny film, I could have done a funny film. And once you do that, everybody assumes that's who you are and that's what you get offered. And at a certain point, you say, "Fine, I like making movies and this is actually interesting," so you put yourself into it.

But I know I can go out and make a "Music of the Heart" or a "Twilight Zone" or things that are not bloody and are also good. There's always a part of me that feels like, well, I'm being restricted, but also, just to have the chance to make movies is such a rare opportunity, and you can put almost anything in anything. You can put a lot into a horror film: humor, commentaries about the culture, stuff that makes them interesting and dense, something that will last.

MTV: And the next film you're writing for Rogue Pictures isn't a horror film at all ...

Craven: It'll be scary, but it's not a maniac with a knife. I tell people different things every time, but it's about a kid who discovers there's a series of murders taking place in the small town where he's living, and he learns about them in a way that doesn't make it easy to prove that they're actually happening, and at a certain point, the killer realizes that this kid is aware of what he's doing and is the only one who knows, so he goes after him.

MTV: What kind of film would you like to do that you haven't done yet?

Craven: We have several scripts we're developing, one is a comedy — a romantic comedy.

MTV: A romantic comedy. From Wes Craven ...

Craven: Yeah, exactly! It has edge, but it's not bloody or about death at all. So there's that. And this thing I'm writing is more of a mystery. There's been developed a sort of prequel of the "Hills" story by other people, a graphic novel, so I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't say, "Let's make that." But other remakes? I didn't grow up on movies because I was raised in a very strict family — my influences were classic literature, of all things — so I don't have a lot of, "Oh, I want to do that." I'm not saying [adaptations and remakes] aren't great things — I thought "Sin City" was just fabulous, it really expanded the boundaries of film in a really fascinating way. But it's not the area I really know. It's more interesting to make your own stuff if you can. Then it's all you — and you end up with a "Nightmare on Elm Street" that is completely your own and feels good.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

'Scream 4' to shoot this spring
Wes Craven to direct original thesps in horror sequel
Source: Variety

Dimension Films has greenlit "Scream 4" to shoot this spring with a release date of April 12, 2011 -- more than a decade after the release of "Scream 3."

Wes Craven will direct and Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courteney Cox Arquette will reprise their roles along with a group of younger thesps.

Dimension said its 2011 slate focuses on continuing its most successful franchises. The original "Scream" grossed more than $170 million worldwide in 1996; "Scream 2" also took in more than $170 million in 1997 and "Scream 3" topped $160 million after it was released in 2000.

Craven helmed all three pics, which starred Campbell, Arquette and Cox Arquette.

" 'Scream' has been such an integral part of Dimension's history, and I look forward to continuing the franchise," said Dimension Films chief Bob Weinstein, who is also co-chairman of the Weinstein Co.

Dimension is set to open "Piranha 3D" on Aug. 27
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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WorldForgot


Wes Craven Day
Dennis Cooper compilez a slew of Wes love



Beginning with Ryan Gilbey's Obit for Wes

Quote'Wes Craven was a horror pioneer three times over. In the 1970s, he wrote and directed several films that delivered a new level of intensity and explicitness to the genre. Most notorious was his debut, The Last House on the Left (1972), the relentless tale of the torture of two women and the revenge doled out to the killers by the victims' parents. (It was inspired by Bergman's The Virgin Spring.) Exaggeration and advertising are synonymous, but this was one instance where the poster copy – "To avoid fainting, keep repeating 'It's only a movie...'" – amounted to more than hyperbole. The scenes of sexual violence made the film the subject of continuing censorship for more than 30 years, particularly in Britain, where it was repeatedly refused a certificate by the British Board of Film Classification. "It's not a movie I would go back and watch," said Craven in 2011.

'In 1984, Craven enjoyed his greatest success with A Nightmare on Elm Street, which lent a fantasy aspect to the slasher genre popular at the time. Whereas the killers in hits such as Friday the 13th or Halloween had been corporeal, Craven devised a monster, Freddy Krueger, who pursued his victims through the infinite space of their dreams. It was to be expected that the movie would be frightening. But scenes of the teenage protagonist struggling to ascend a marshmallow staircase, or being dragged by her pursuer into the depths of a bath that has become suddenly bottomless, possessed a haunted beauty worthy of Jean Cocteau.

'The film became a lucrative franchise, spawning a TV series, endless merchandise, six sequels, a movie spinoff, Freddy Vs Jason (2003), and a 2010 remake. Freddy Krueger himself grew into a popular modern-day bogeyman and a postwar equivalent to Dracula. However, Craven was involved with only two of the sequels. He wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), which included at least one disturbing image to rank with anything from the first film: the holes on a junkie's arm turning into tiny mouths, pleading and insatiable. He also wrote and directed the sophisticated and rejuvenating fifth episode, entitled Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994), which featured the director and some of the cast members playing themselves. It was witty, satirical and scary: a bloodspattered Pirandello.

'Craven's hat-trick was completed in 1996 when he directed Scream, best described as a horror movie that knows it's a horror movie. Though the idea had not come from him (Kevin Williamson wrote the screenplay), it was consistent with his sensibility. The collegeage characters in Scream are well-versed in the conventions of the horror genre. The killer who is stalking them, wearing a ghostly mask elongated in a Munchian howl, is given to asking his victims: "What's your favourite scary movie?" Scream 2 (1997) maintained the humour, horror and postmodern mischief: one scene included a discussion about how rare it is for sequels to improve upon originals. This foreshadowed a falling-off in quality across another two outings (2000 and 2011) directed by Craven.

'Wesley was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents, Paul, who died when his son was five years old, and Caroline (nee Miller), were strict Baptists who forbade him from reading comic books. He attended Wheaton College, Illinois, graduating with a degree in English and psychology, then got his master's in philosophy and writing from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. For several years he was a teacher before breaking into the film industry as a sound editor. He directed pseudonymously a number of pornographic movies and was credited as editor and assistant director on It Happened in Hollywood (1973), a porn comedy produced by the editors of Screw magazine.

'The Last House on the Left originated when Craven and his friend and colleague Sean Cunningham were commissioned to make a cheap horror film (the budget was under $90,000) for the bottom half of a double bill. Craven described the picture's coarse, gritty violence as a reaction to the horrors of Vietnam, and embraced a narrative free from moral certainties. In the wake of its notoriety, Craven found himself all but ostracised: "My friends barely talked to me after they saw it. My social life among New York academic types disappeared." He was unable to raise the money for other scripts he had written outside the genre, but was promised the budget should he wish to make a second horror film.

'In response, he wrote and directed The Hills Have Eyes (1977), about a road trip that goes wrong when the travellers find themselves at the mercy of mutant savages in the Nevada desert. Craven followed this with several TV movies and a handful of tepid films, among them Deadly Blessing (1981) and the lacklustre The Hills Have Eyes II (1984). After A Nightmare on Elm Street became a hit, Craven seemed to flounder. He made the TV movie Chiller (1985), about a man cryogenically frozen, the zombie voodoo horror The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) and several episodes of The Twilight Zone. Though not a boxoffice success, The People Under the Stairs (1991) was powerful. It took the idea of an imprisoned race of creatures, bred in captivity by a tyrannical white couple, as his metaphor for the poor, African-American underclass in the US.

'Outside the Scream series, his choices could be variable. The Eddie Murphy horror comedy Vampire in Brooklyn (1995) was undistinguished. But the fine suspense thriller Red Eye (2005), set largely on a plane, was positively Hitchcockian. Craven strayed far outside his comfort zone in the sentimental drama Music of the Heart (1999), which aimed for the tear ducts rather than the hairs on the back of the neck; it earned an Oscar nomination for its star, Meryl Streep, as a violin teacher in Harlem.'

A whole bunch of gifs;







Oddly, DC includes a Planet Terror and Blade gif in there, lol. In reading this post I find one of the tv moviez for free, for now

Wes Craven: One Last Scream by Jennifer Juniper Stratford


Yes

Can't wait to read. Great share