Editorials
New Line Cinema Issues Statement on Wes Craven’s Passing
In 1981, Wes Craven began writing the script for one of the most well known horror movies ever released: A Nightmare on Elm Street. It was a movie that Craven had great difficulty making as nearly every single studio he brought the script to turned it down for one reason or another. Hell, apparently Walt Disney Pictures was interested but only if Craven toned it down so they could show it to children and pre-teens. Craven thankfully declined.
Eventually, it was New Line Cinema that took a chance on the film, producing it with a budget of $1.8 million, a number that it made back in the first week of the film’s release. The first film went on to gross nearly $26 million in the US box office, saving the struggling studio. The series has since grossed over $450 million in worldwide box office and is one of the most iconic horror franchises to ever be released, earning New Line Cinema the nickname “The House That Freddy Built”.
The passing of Wes Craven was obviously a very large blow for the horror community and New Line is feeling that pain as strongly as any of us.
In an official statement sent to Bloody-Disgusting, the studio writes:
In 1984, Wes Craven brought “A Nightmare on Elm Street” to New Line, and in so doing, altered the course of the studio’s history. We are eternally grateful to our friend and partner, and are proud to be “The House That Freddy Built”.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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