While speaking to Wes Craven yesterday about the upcoming release of Scream 4 on April 15th, B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen took a moment to ask the director for updates on previously-rumored remakes of his earlier films – Shocker and The People Under the Stairs have both been mentioned – given that he’s taken a very active role in producing previous reboots of his (with the exception of last year’s Elm Street, which he confesses he had nothing to do with).

However, it appears we may not be seeing any more remakes of Craven’s movies (at least those he owns the rights to) anytime soon, as he told B-D that spending so much of his time on Hills and Last House caused him to realize that doing what he really loves – actually directing movies – had been put on the back burner for far too long.

More inside.
“You know, I think there was a little [period] where we were kind of doing remakes – [though] the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ remake was made by totally different people – but part of that was just the result of discovering that we owned those projects again after 30 years,” said Craven. “But definitely by the end of the second ‘Hills Have Eyes’ film remake, I felt like, you know, I’m spending too much of my time and energy doing this, and I need to get back to directing. And so…I wrote ‘My Soul to Take’ and then signed up for [‘Scream 4’].

“You know, I just kind of looked [at it] and I said, ‘you know what, you’re a director and [you] shouldn’t be devoting a full year to remaking ‘The Hills Have Eyes’,” he continued. “It takes that kind of time, and…the choice seems to be obvious [to direct instead]. I think I underestimated the amount of time that was required to do a remake. Even if you were gonna put it in the hands of a really good director, you still have to be very much a part of it, you still have to be doing a lot of work on it. And that kind of keeps you from being a director. So I kind of put all that behind me for the time being, and maybe for the rest of my life. [Laughs]”

I for one am glad Craven has gotten back in the directing game recently, regardless of the relative quality of his newer films. My Soul to Take may have been a disappointment for most, but given his stature as one of the greatest horror directors in film history I’d agree with Craven that his time is far better spent behind the camera. And besides, did anyone (besides BC) really care to see a remake of Shocker?