Legendary horror
director Wes Craven, known for the “Scream” films and the “Nightmare on Elm Street ” series,
died Sunday in his Los Angeles
home of brain cancer. He was 76.
Known for creating
the iconic Freddy Krueger character from “Nightmare on Elm Street ” and Ghostface in “Scream,”
the versatile filmmaker also wrote and produced features, directed for
television and wrote novels.
Craven was a
humanities professor before leaving academia to work in post production and on
porn movies, using a pseudonym. His first credited feature was the
controversial shocker “The Last House on the Left,” which he wrote, directed
and edited in 1972. He followed with the blackly comic “The Hills Have Eyes”
and “Swamp Thing,” an early entry in the comic book genre.
He wrote and
directed “A Nightmare on Elm
Street ,” with Robert Englund as Krueger and an
early Johnny Depp performance, in 1984. The surreal slasher pic is credited
with having started the “dream reality” style of 1980s horror filmmakers and
helped launch independent film studio New Line Cinema.
“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,'” New Line said in a
statement.
Bill Pullman starred in 1988’s
“Serpent and the Rainbow,” which was based on a non-fiction book about voodoo.
Craven tried his hand at non-horror fare between “Scream 2” and “Scream 3” with
“Music of the Heart” in 1999, for which Meryl Streep was Oscar-nommed for best
actress. He also wrote a novel, “The Fountain Society,” that year.
In the 1990s he
pioneered the meta horror movie with film-within-a-film “Wes Craven’s New
Nightmare,” then followed with “Scream” in 1996. He directed all four
installments of the satirical scarer; the first grossed more than $100 million
domestically. Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, it
became a cultural phenomenon and inspired the “Scary Movie” spoof series.
He mixed it up
again with 2005 psychological thriller “Red Eye” and with a romantic comedy
segment in “Paris Je t’aime,” then produced remakes of his earlier films “The
Hills Have Eyes” and “The Last House on the Left.”
Craven was still
actively developing projects, having recently signed an overall television deal
with Universal Cable Productions. He had television projects in development
including “The People Under the Stairs” with Syfy Networks, “Disciples” with
UCP, “We Are All Completely Fine” with Syfy/UCP, and “Sleepers” with Federation
Entertainment. He was also executive producing the new “Scream” series
for MTV. His most recent films were 2010’s “My Soul to Take” and “Scream 4” in
2011.
He had recently
written and was to direct the “Thou Shalt Not Kill” segment for the Weinstein
Company/WGN’s “Ten Commandments” television miniseries, and had also been
working on a graphic novel series based on his original idea “Coming of Rage”
for Liquid Comics, in collaboration with Steve Niles. He was exec producer of
“The Girl in the Photographs,” which will premiere in Toronto .
Born August 2,
1939, in Cleveland , Ohio , the longtime bird lover served as a
longtime member of the Audubon California Board of Directors.
“I am heartbroken
at the news of Wes Craven’s passing,” Bob Weinstein, co-chairman of the Weinstein
Company and Dimension Films, said in a statement. “We enjoyed a 20 year
professional relationship and more importantly a warm and close
friendship. He was a consummate filmmaker and his body of work will live
on forever. My brother and I are eternally grateful for all his collaborations
with us.”
Craven is survived
by his wife, producer and former Disney Studios VP Iya Labunka; sister Carol
Buhrow; son Jonathan Craven; daughter Jessica Craven; stepdaughter Nina
Tarnawksy and three grandchildren.
---- Extract from Variety
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