Movies
Wes Craven Talks ‘Scream 4’ Script Issues, New Trilogy
Over the course of production there were a flurry of rumors that genre writer Ehren Kruger (The Ring, The Ring Two, Blood and Chocolate, The Skeleton Key, Scream 3) had come aboard to rewrite much of Kevin Williamson’s Scream 4 script. While it was more rumor than fact, no party ever really openly spoke about the situation.
Now that Craven is is post production, with an April 15 release date in sight, the iconic director opened up to UK mag Total Film and revealed exactly what went down on set in Ann Arbor, Michigan. You’ll find the full story inside…
Excerpts from Total Film:
On the screenplay: “During production, Craven tweeted that he was “no longer in control of the script” as Scream 3 writer Ehren Kruger came in to rework Williamson’s draft. “I was just stating the fact,” he recalls. “In some ways it’s a Wes Craven film, and in way it’s not entirely, because it’s not a script I have control of. It’s ultimately controlled by what the studio wants in the script. My job is much more bringing whatever experience and expertise and creativity I can.” He pauses. “Look, there was a bumpy period when things shifted over from Kevin to Ehren. I signed up to do a script by Kevin and unfortunately that didn’t go all the way through the shooting. But it certainly is Kevin’s script and concept and ideas and themes.”
On a potential new trilogy: “And would Craven be up for any more if this Screamed up enough box office? “When I initially met with Kevin, he sketched out what the next two would be, and I found it really fascinating,” he concludes. “A lot depends on whether they come up with scripts to flesh out. But certainly, I’m up for it, if the script is there. It’s a fascinating thing to do two trilogies in a career.”
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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