This remake went through a few directors as well as writers. James Cameron was attached, then Oliver Stone, and finally Tim Burton.
Cameron gives his thoughts on the film in an Ain’t it Cool interview here.
Read about Oliver Stone’s involvement at CHUD.com
Read Mike White’s reviews of the Hayes and Hamm scripts in issue 10 of Cashiers du Cinemart.
by Roger Avary When Quentin Tarantino needed a middle section for Pulp Fiction, he asked friend Roger Avary if he could adapt a portion of the Pandemonium Reigns script. This became the Gold Watch segment in the final film.
Avary.com used to have the script and an essay on how it evolved, but it appears to have been taken down.
by Peter Jackson Back before Peter Jackson was a hugely successful director, New Line invited him to take a crack at the Freddy franchise. (Jackson was actually sleeping on Mark Ordesky’s couch for a time.)
I’ve found references to the script, and it can be seen in a behind-the-scenes doc on the Infinifilm DVD release of A Nightmare on Elm Street, but it probably hasn’t been distributed online. If anyone knows where it can be found, please let me know!
Here’s the story as recounted in Peter Jackson: From Prince of Splatter to Lord of the Rings by Ian Pryor.
Jackson’s first Hollywood paycheck involves the complex family tree of Freddy Krueger… Jackson’s first films Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles caught the attention of a number of New Line staff, including scriptreader Mark Ordesky. Though Ordesky failed to persuade his bosses to distribute either film, Jackson and Feebles scriptwriter Danny Mulheron were instead offered the chance to write a script for Elm Street… Jackson and Mulheron’s script begins with Freddy initially having lost much of his power to terrify. Teenagers in Springfield take sleeping pills so that they can go into the dream world and take turns attacking him. the film’s hero is a policeman in a coma, who finds himself in the dream world, where he discovers Krueger. “The climax of it was the deconstruction of Freddy Krueger,” says Mulheron. “By confronting him with his impotence, he lost his ability to scare.” Jackson and Mulheron’s script was paid for but never used, partly because Elm Street production veteran Rachel Talalay had drafted a treatment for her own film Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. New Line commissioned a script based upon this treatment, which failed to satisfy, after which Talalay asked New Line executive Michael De Luca to write the script himself. Freddy’s Dead was filmed in early 1991. New Line staff, enthused by the Jackson Mulheron script, later asked Jackson if he might want to work on their long-in-development Freddy Versus Jason, but Jackson turned them down.
Jackson’s first Hollywood paycheck involves the complex family tree of Freddy Krueger… Jackson’s first films Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles caught the attention of a number of New Line staff, including scriptreader Mark Ordesky. Though Ordesky failed to persuade his bosses to distribute either film, Jackson and Feebles scriptwriter Danny Mulheron were instead offered the chance to write a script for Elm Street…
Jackson and Mulheron’s script begins with Freddy initially having lost much of his power to terrify. Teenagers in Springfield take sleeping pills so that they can go into the dream world and take turns attacking him. the film’s hero is a policeman in a coma, who finds himself in the dream world, where he discovers Krueger. “The climax of it was the deconstruction of Freddy Krueger,” says Mulheron. “By confronting him with his impotence, he lost his ability to scare.” Jackson and Mulheron’s script was paid for but never used, partly because Elm Street production veteran Rachel Talalay had drafted a treatment for her own film Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. New Line commissioned a script based upon this treatment, which failed to satisfy, after which Talalay asked New Line executive Michael De Luca to write the script himself. Freddy’s Dead was filmed in early 1991. New Line staff, enthused by the Jackson Mulheron script, later asked Jackson if he might want to work on their long-in-development Freddy Versus Jason, but Jackson turned them down.
by Quentin Tarantino Oliver Stone turned this one inside out. To this day, Tarantino hasn’t been able to watch the movie all the way through. Me, I like the final product, but I can see how heart-wrenching it could be for the writer.
Download screenplay
by David Lynch This doesn’t happen often. Lynch’s TV show was developed, the pilot was shot, and then dropped. (Not that unusual.) But then Lynch got funding to shoot some more scenes, re-edit the film, and release it theatrically. Not only did it work, it went on to win awards. Bootlegs of the original TV pilot can be found online.
by Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson Jackson first developed this project back before doing The Lord of the Rings. This 1996 draft has a much different tone than the final 2005 film.
by Quentin Tarantino Here’s an early draft, presumably the one that Harry Knowles loved so much.It contains scenes and characters that were dropped in the final version, and thus several chapter names are different. Note that it contains all ten chapters, as the movie wasn’t broken into two volumes until the post-production phase. Read comparisons of the script to the movies Kill Bill Vol. 1and Kill Bill Vol. 2 at UGO Screenwriter’s Voice.
Download Screenplay
by Harlan Ellison Ellison did a good job pulling Isaac Asimov’s stories into a cohesive script, but it was shelved anyway, never to be produced. Fortunately, fans can purchase the screenplay in book form, with many pretty pictures. You’ll have to go to the bookstore for this one. In the summer of 2004, director Alex Proyas brought us a shiny new version starring Will Smith, with a script by Akiva Goldsman.
Buy the illustrated screenplay
a.k.a. Indiana Jones IV a.k.a. Indiana Jones and the Monkey King a.k.a. Indiana Jones and the Garden of Life by Chris Columbus From what I can gather, this script was actually written by established screenwriter Chris Columbus. He wrote it unsolicited and presented it to the Lucas camp after the success of Temple of Doom. It wasn’t produced, as Jeffrey Boam’s Last Crusade script was used instead.Years later, the Monkey King script showed up online, with changes to the title and date made to fool the fan community that this may be a script for the fourth movie. Don’t believe it.
New Line commissioned tons of scripts for this project. They spun their wheels for several years, and then produced a movie that was good, clean, mediocre fun. Sure, I liked it, but I think that had more to do with director Ronny Yu than the quality of the writing. Briggs’ script is notable for its reference to the Phantasm movies. (Look for the SILVER “PHANTASM” BALL near the end.)
