Wes Craven’s Craven’s original cut does still exist somewhere.
Craven’s original plan for Cursed centered on three strangers who are attacked by a werewolf following an accident, and was pitched as a bold reinvention of the werewolf horror movie. Directed by Craven, written by Kevin Williamson, and starring Skeet Ulrich, the original plan had all the makings of restoring another beloved sub-genre to its former glory - like Craven did with slasher movies after releasing Scream - but when filming was 90% complete, producer Bob Weinstein demanded sweeping changes.
Changed from an R to a PG-13 rating and removing Rick Baker’s practical effects in favor of poorly edited CGI, reshoots and changes to the plot not only destroyed Craven’s original vision, but it also forced many of the original cast to leave due to scheduling conflicts. As such, Cursed became a totally different movie, but the likely far superior version is still out there — here's everything we know about Craven's original vision for Cursed and the future of the "Craven cut".
What Wes Craven's Original Version Of Cursed Was Like
After the success of the Scream franchise, Dimension Films brought director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson back together in hopes that they could work their magic once again on the werewolf sub-genre, bringing it into the modern age. With a $38 million budget, production originally began in 2003 with the original premise being about three strangers who must navigate through Los Angeles after a werewolf attack.
The film originally starred Christina Ricci, Jesse Eisenberg, and Skeet Ulrich in the three lead roles with a stacked cast line-up including Omar Epps, Mandy Moore, Robert Forster, Illeana Douglas, Scott Foley, Heather Langenkamp, and Corey Feldman. Williamson’s original script offers a much gorier, less silly movie than the final theatrical version. Some of the familiar theatrical scenes are present in the original script, such as the initial car crash and Ellie and Jimmy realizing that they’re changing, but most of the movie is vastly different from the original story.
In Craven's original plan for Cursed, Ellie and Jimmy are not brother and sister. Likewise, Jake doesn’t exist in the original script; he was instead replaced by Skeet Ulrich’s character, the burnout son of a millionaire, Vince. A lot of the ancillary characters seen in the final cut also have larger roles in the original script, like Scott Baio and Jenny, the girl from the beginning of the movie. There are also several characters in the script that never made their way into the final cut of the movie at all.
In addition to the story and character changes, the legendary An American Werewolf in London - was brought on board to design the werewolves for Cursed. The original version of Cursed seemed to have everything going for it in of making a successful horror film that set out to accomplish the initial goal of reinventing another predictable, increasingly stale sub-genre.
Why Cursed Was Changed For The Theatrical Release
Unfortunately, after 90% of the film had been shot, Bob Weinstein ordered massive changes, including multiple waves of script rewrites that stalled the project, landing it in development hell for three years before the final cut was released to theaters. Initially, executives decided the third act was too weak, and asked Williamson to rewrite it. This is ironic because it’s one of the only portions from the original script that has the same general framework as the finished film. Even so, it put the production into a four week halt.
After the first rewrites, Dimension started interjecting, which led to Williamson essentially rewriting the entire script again, resulting in more delays, as he was also finishing up the series finale of Dawson’s Creek at the same time. The four week delay turned into three months, which subsequently caused many of the original actors to leave the project due to scheduling conflicts as filming dragged on through a total of four waves of reshoots.
As a result of all the delays, Rick Baker was either fired or left the project - reports are conflicting as to which was the true reason for his departure - and KNB was brought on to replace all the practical effects with CGI. This ended up being another unfortunate side effect of production hell because not only was the loss of Baker tremendous for the quality of the movie, but the CG werewolves were also expensive, which cut much of their on-screen time down. What remained didn’t exactly age well.
Then, in the fall of 2004, Dimension made further cuts to Cursed, ultimately chopping it down to a PG-13 movie rather than the original R-rated cut. In an interview posted by Horror.Land, Wes Craven said,
"The contract called for us to make an R-rated film. We did. It was a very difficult process. Then it was basically taken away from us and cut to PG-13 and ruined. It was two years of very difficult work and almost 100 days of shooting of various versions. Then at the very end, it was chopped up and the studio thought they could make more with a PG-13 movie, and trashed it ... I thought it was completely disrespectful, and it hurt them too, and it was like they shot themselves in the foot with a shotgun.”
Will Wes Craven's Cursed Ever Release?
Back in 2018, former Dimension executive Cary Granat confirmed that the so-called “Craven cut” of Cursed is definitely still out there, and he agrees that it should be released. In an interview with Bloody Disgusting, the former Dimension COO said, “It still exists, I just don’t know if it went with The Weinstein Company. I left in 2000 to start Walden so it was in development after that.”
Editor Patrick Lussier, who is now a horror director in his own right, has also confirmed that the original Craven footage of Cursed is still in existence. After the behind-the-scenes atrocities of the Weinstein brothers were revealed, The Weinstein Company was forced to sell off its properties, with a reported 200+ films going to Lantern Entertainment. Most likely, Lantern has the original Cursed footage, though no one has confirmed exactly what state it’s in or where, exactly, it is.
Fans started to rally around releasing the "Craven cut" of Cursed; Rick Baker even tweeted some of his original creature designs. However, Patrick Lussier popped in with, “Sadly, this doesn’t exist the way you’d like it to.” That statement can be interpreted in a lot of ways, but most likely, he’s indicating that while the footage may still technically exist, it’s not in the complete form that Craven would have wanted.
While 90% of the movie was shot before changes started, the ending was never finished, and obviously the raw footage would need to be edited, scored, and filled in with some footage from the reshoots to patch up the gaps. Because of this, it’s unclear if a cohesive movie would actually be able to be made from the existing footage. However, with Craven’s ing in 2015, and the Snyder cut of Justice League being such a big deal, it’s definitely a possibility that the studio might try to make something of Craven’s original Cursed cut after all.
