With the remake of Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left hitting theaters this week, it’s not surprising to see the horror icon talking remakes. Instead of talking about the one about to be in theaters, however, Craven took a moment to talk with Moviehole about the planned remake of his signature film, A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Craven is as unexcited as you might expect about the idea of remaking the classic horror picture. In fact, Craven expects he won’t even see the new version, due out next year from Platinum Dunes. 'That’d be a tough one to re-see. I mean, it was tough for me to see Scary Movie, because they basically just took my shots. It was like – I had done all the hard work, and then I was sort of the laughingstock of it. But, you know, if you move on from the films you’ve made-- which I have tried always to move on – then it’s like, that’s in the past. You know, it’s had his life.
Craven hits on one of the big problems I have with remakes right there - this is someone else’s work. Someone else came up with the idea of a killer who stalks people in their dreams; a pedaphile who seeks revenge from beyond the grave for the vigilante justice that was handed to him. That was Craven’s idea and passion. Someone else taking that over in a remake just seems… wrong.
At the same time, Craven knows why remakes are a viable choice: ”I guess now they’re moving towards remakes rather than sequels, because at some point you can’t justify another sequel, but you can remake the original, because the audiences have gone through two or three generations... Still, isn’t film supposed to last? Isn’t the whole idea of home entertainment that we can continue to watch the older movies and expose new generations to those movies, instead of having to remake them?
Regardless, every time I see Craven touch on the subject, he reminds the press that he has no ownership of Nightmare so the studio can do whatever they want to with it. If you look at the franchise, though, the weaker chapters almost always were done without Craven’s involvement. It was only when the writer/director was attached to a Freddy picture that the Nightmare was worth watching. Doing a remake without any involvement from Craven seems like a bad idea… but that’s never stopped the studios before.
Link to article.....
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/No-Nightmare-For-Wes-Craven-12276.html
I am sad to find out that Craven is not up for this, that makles me sad. I am up for The Platinum Dunes remake, I really enjoy there films and truely believe that they have a deep love for the films they produce, they do it for the love of the genre, not for the money. Someone will end up making a remake, and I'd rather someone that is good and loves the original to do it, than some Hollywood prick who wants to make money to reboot it.
T.ROSS PRODUCTIONS
November 07, 2007, 02:23:07 PM
