The studio wasn’t prepared for Nightmare On Elm Street to become a franchise [Exclusive]

No discussion of New Line Cinema is complete without the phrase “The House That Freddy Built.” While it may be simplistic to attribute New Line’s success (and its eventual acquisition by Warner Bros.) solely to the “A Nightmare On Elm Street” franchise, there is no doubt that “Elm Street” saved the studio and put it on the map, and that the series’ enormous box office success and cultural impact helped lead to future victories like the “The Lord of the Rings” films. Rings” and the “Conjuring” franchise. On the one hand, the prosperity of the “Elm Street” films is another example of the power and popularity of the horror genre as a whole. It’s a lesson that big Hollywood continually seems to forget and relearn; after all, the 2025 box office wouldn’t be anywhere near what it is without massive horror hits like “Sinners” and “Weapons.” Yet Freddy Krueger’s omnipresence in the 1980s and early 1990s transcended even the average blockbuster horror film. Freddy has become a true successor to other horror icons like Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and others, appearing not only in the film series but also in spin-off television shows, comic books, toys and other related materials.

Of course, there’s no way to predict which film and which character could have such a big impact on culture. Freddy’s popularity baffled even his creator, Wes Craven, as the 1994 meta-sequel “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” attempted to understand why this guy became so huge. Considering how quickly New Line put a sequel to “Nightmare on Elm Street” into production after the original film was a hit at the box office in late 1984, one would assume that at least the studio had some inkling that Freddy could be a big deal. However, according to a recent exclusive interview with “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge” director Jack Sholder, that was hardly the case. As Sholder explains, New Line Cinema wasn’t prepared for “Elm Street” to become a franchise, and this early myopia in the series led to problems with “Freddy’s Revenge,” things that almost stopped Freddy from continuing his reign of terror.

According to Sholder, when New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye came across Craven’s script for “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” it wasn’t necessarily monetary signs that Shaye saw in it. Sholder explained:

“I remember when Bob first chose Wes’ script, because he used to direct stuff with me…I was one of the people he listened to. […] He was very excited about the script. He wasn’t saying, “Oh, this script is going to make a ton of money.” He said: “It’s going to make a great film. » That was a bit of his attitude. He loved the premise and the way Wes made it happen. And then when the movie came out, and it had the biggest gross of that weekend, I think, on Monday, the head of distribution said, ‘Start writing the sequel now.'”

There was one small problem regarding an “Elm Street” sequel, of course, and that was that the film was never intended to support a continuing story. During the final days of filming “Elm Street,” Shaye had the foresight to ask Craven to shoot more open-ended concluding moments. That said, as Sholder observed, sequels at the time were “a little looked down upon”, and New Line’s distribution arm believed that if a sequel achieved 70% of what the original film achieved, then it would be considered a success. In other words, today’s mentality that sequels can (and perhaps should) surpass their predecessors had not yet emerged. As Sholder continues:

“The hope was that [Nightmare 2] would do well enough for there to be a “Nightmare 3″. The idea of ​​a “Nightmare 4”, no one went there. Maybe in their dreams. They were hoping to make another movie out of it…and there was never any pressure for me to make a movie that was a success.”

Although the concept of a franchise was still fairly new in the mid-80s, certain tropes had already begun to emerge, one of them being that there should be one or more returning characters in a sequel if possible. However, while New Line Cinema certainly wanted Freddy Krueger to remain the supernatural villain of “Elm Street,” they almost didn’t bring back actor Robert Englund to reprise the role. As Sholder recalled, the studio considered the title and character more important than the actor at this point, in the same way that other slasher villains like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees had swapped performers in their sequels:

“They just wanted to release a script called ‘Nightmare on Elm Street 2’ with a character called Freddy, not necessarily played by Robert Englund.”

Fortunately, Englund came aboard “Freddy’s Revenge.” Even so, the film would end up presenting a different type of Krueger than the one seen in Craven’s film. This Freddy would be a bit more verbose (but still not completely comical), and instead of invading the dreams of the Elm Street kids, he would attempt to enter the real world by invading the dreams of (and ultimately possessing) Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton). This change in the rules makes “Freddy’s Revenge” strangely unique in retrospect, but caused some problems for the film’s initial reputation with fans. It also shows that no one at New Line was thinking about the longevity of the franchise, as Sholder explains:

“The rules were [there was] this guy called Freddy, he kills teenagers when they’re sleeping. That was the rule, that was all. […] This [film] This doesn’t quite add up, because they broke the rule that Freddy comes into the world. Freddy doesn’t do that. Because if Freddy did that, then you wouldn’t have “Nightmare on Elm Street”, because you wouldn’t have to fall asleep to get killed by Freddy. So this idea is kind of a dead end. “

Sholder is right that a sequel following the rules established in “Freddy’s Revenge” would have been a dead end for the series, especially since it would have taken away much of what would become the franchise’s hallmark. Still, the benefits of the creative freedom afforded to Sholder and company on “Freddy’s Revenge,” as well as the fact that New Line is only looking at one film at a time and not a cinematic universe, are all qualities that today’s studios and producers may wish to revisit. It’s always good to have an eye on future prospects, but don’t put the cart before the horse.