Wes Craven Initially Turned Down ‘Scream’ Because He Wanted To Get Out Of The “Horror Ghetto”

After launching his career in horror in the ‘70s, the next decade brought Wes Craven a ton of success thanks to his “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise. By the ‘90s, however, after directing what he thought was the end of ‘Nightmare’ franchise with 1994’s “New Nightmare,” Craven was apparently ready to leave horror behind and start making other types of films. But then came “Scream.”

According to a recent oral history from THR, it is revealed that Wes Craven was very much against working on “Scream” when Dimension offered him the job in the mid-‘90s. Not only was he done with horror, but he felt like he already did a deconstruction/meta version of the slasher with the aforementioned “New Nightmare.” But somehow, he was won over.

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“I loved the script, but Wes was very adamant about not wanting to do a horror movie next. He wanted to get out of the horror ghetto, as he called it,” said producer Marianne Maddalena. “So, he passed on it right away. A couple of months later he read it again and they had attached Drew Barrymore and he just felt like, well, why not? He really enjoyed that work and he knew he was good at it, so he never thought twice about it once he accepted the job.”

Dimension executive Richard Potter added, “If it wasn’t for Marianne and [Wes’ then-assistant] Julie Plec, Wes would have passed. I kept trying to get him to say yes, and he kept saying he’s done horror, he’s done slasher. I think he felt with ‘New Nightmare’ that he’d sort of done the self-reflective meta thing. They were the ones at his company who kept saying, ‘You haven’t done this before. Nobody’s done this before.’ The two of them got him to do the movie.”

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Obviously, we know what happened next. “Scream” became a box office hit, spawning three sequels, all directed by Craven. He did eventually get to do his non-horror film, 1999’s “Music of the Heart,” but that served as just a bit of a detour before he got back on the horror train with films like “Cursed,” “Red Eye,” and “My Soul to Take.” His final film, appropriately enough, was 2011’s “Scream 4.” 

Now, it appears everything that is old is new again, as “Scream” is set to make a comeback with a reboot-quel arriving on January 14, 2022. So, we’ll get to see what a “Scream” film looks like without Craven behind the camera.