News

The Story of How Robert Englund Almost Didn’t Play Freddy Krueger!

Published

3 years ago

April 20, 2021

Robert Englund is of course best known for playing Freddy Krueger in all seven original Nightmare on Elm Street films, as well as reprising the role in Freddy vs. Jason. Needless to say, it’s highly likely that Freddy would’ve never become the iconic pop culture figure that he did if it weren’t for Englund, and for that reason and that reason alone, we should all be kissing the man’s feet.

While it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone in the role other than Robert Englund – let’s pretend that remake doesn’t even exist, shall we? – an interesting bit of trivia connected to the Elm Street franchise is that Englund actually wasn’t Wes Craven’s first choice to play the nightmarish dream demon. That honor instead belongs to English actor David Warner, who donned the Christmas sweater in the early going. Yes, Freddy was almost an Englishman.

The origin story of the Freddy Krueger character is tied to a memorable event in Craven’s childhood, where he heard strange noises outside of his house one night, and upon looking out the window, saw a creepy old man walking past in a fedora. As if sensing a young Craven’s fear, the man looked up into the window and spooked him something fierce, leaving an indelible mark on the director’s life. Craven was particularly struck by the way the old man seemed to get enjoyment out of scaring him, which became the general basis of Freddy Krueger.

Conceived and written as being an old man, Craven naturally auditioned older actors for the role and it was David Warner who stuck out to him. Warner, who had previously played Jennings in The Omen, was originally cast to play Krueger, going so far as to sit for makeup tests (above). Proving that it just wasn’t meant to be, Warner soon thereafter dropped off the project, due to scheduling conflicts.

It was then, and only then, that Craven met Robert Englund, whose audition so impressed him that he had a complete change of heart about the character, deciding that a younger actor could pull it off just as well, if not better, than an older one could – after all, once the makeup is on, you can’t tell the age of the actor underneath anyway. And so, with Warner no longer attached, Englund was hired to take his place, and Freddy Krueger – as we know and love him – was born.

(Interesting to note that over a decade later, David Warner appeared in Scream 2 as drama teacher Gus Gold, at long last working with Wes Craven.)

All due respect to Warner, but I am incredibly happy that things worked out the way they did, as again I truly believe that Freddy just wouldn’t have been Freddy, without Englund underneath the makeup. As we saw in that awful remake, just because you’re a great actor doesn’t mean you can handle the role, and though I’m sure Warner would’ve done a fine job, I’m willing to bet that Freddy would’ve never become as iconic as he did if he didn’t leave the project, and pave the way for Englund to come in.

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Movies

‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

Published

1 hour ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

^{High Desert Hell}

^{The Gemini Project}

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Movies

‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

Published

3 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

^{Happy Sad Confused}

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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News

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

Published

6 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.