IT’S THE BOOZE TALKIN’: Yo Weinsteins! Let the writers write and the directors direct!

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

For the longest time, one of my favorite horror directors ever was Mr. Wes Craven. He freaked my mind with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and made me feel like an insider within a true-life slasher with SCREAM… hell, he even made being a ghost trapped in the confides of a prison seem like fun with SHOCKER. But then he did a little werewolf movie called CURSED, and my respect and admiration for the man dwindled down to nothing more than polite respect for a pioneer of the genre. What a turkey CURSED turned out to be! In the years following CURSED’s release, it came to light that it wasn’t necessarily Craven’s fault, but that of NAME and NAME Weinstein, the mega-producers behind Miramax and Dimension Films.

Craven claims his hands were tied, that the final film was not the product he set out to make, and because of the Weinstein’s sticking their fingers where they don’t belong the werewolf movie that possibly could turned into the werewolf movie that sucked balls. In the years since, more and more projects via Dimension Films and the Weinsteins have gone from good to crap, making me think that maybe.. just maybe… it’s time for the Weinsteins to let the f*cking writers write and let the f*cking director’s direct already! The CURSED example was the first to come to mind, but there’s a whole string of films that the said writers and/or directors have claimed that their vision was abruptly altered by the Weinsteins, thus resulting in something that was less than spectacular.

Films like THE CROW 2, HELLRAISER 4, HALLOWEEN 6 and HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION come immediately to mind as some films that could have been dope, but influences from the brothers made them less than satisfactory. And most recently, shite like Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN and HALLOWEEN II, both of which have Zombie’s original cut out there so you can see the difference between what he wanted and what the Weinsteins wanted (the theatrical cut). The difference? One vision had balls, the other vision did not. Of course, this is not always the case, as it appears that some films are given a free reign of non-Weinstein influence.

The aforementioned SCREAM, the GRINDHOUSE double-feature (PLANET TERROR and DEATH PROOF), and PIRANHA 3D are among the ‘solid’ films from Dimension that didn’t have the Weinstein baggage attached—and all of which are pretty damn good. You could say, the Weinsteins will only let seasoned professionals with a bonafide track record of hits do their work without interference… and I guess besides Craven, you could be sorta right. Let’s not forget the debacle that was THE FACULTY, a little movie the Weinsteins “made” Robert Rodriguez direct… and you can tell. Not only does it not feel like a Rodriguez film, but it’s not nearly as epic or as awesome as it probably should have been. Seriously… it’s from writer Kevin Williamson! You’d think matching Williamson and Rodriguez together would have been cinematic gold, but alas… it was not. And whose fault was that? My guess… the Weinsteins.

I know, I’m throwing a lot of blame at these guys and to their credit, they likely green light a number of genre films that would have never seen the light of day if it weren’t for them. I’m grateful for the SCREAM movies (even the suckass SCREAM 3), but that doesn’t give them a pass for taking the creative reigns away from the filmmakers who put their heart and soul into a project only to have the Weinsteins come in and tell them to change it to their liking… or else. I realize that shit happens all the time in Hollywood, and you know, most of the time it’s probably for the better. Richard Kelly should have had somebody come on board SOUTHLAND TALES to tell him it didn’t make a lick of sense and that some serious shit needed to change before it was ready for public consumption. But from what I can tell, when the Weinsteins decide to step in, the result is usually not to make something better, but to actually make it worse.

From all accounts, SCREAM 4 was better than most of the other sequels, but not up to par (in the least) with SCREAM. And now that the film is released, some shit has come to light as to the Weinstein’s involvement, like how the opening sequence was completely changed and how a number of other things were cut-out based on their input. Was their meddling with the final product the reason why it wasn’t the epic sequel everyone was hoping? That’s definitely up for debate and unless Craven releases a Director’s Cut on DVD, I guess we’ll never know. But considering the track record of everyone involved, I’d say it’s a very likely assumption. Again… Craven and Williamson back together again after SCREAM and SCREAM 2, you would THINK that their chemistry would have ripened with age, and it… it soured? Or was it the Weinsteins who soured it for them?

Maybe it’s the f*cking booze talkin’, but the Weinsteins really need to stop sticking their fingers where they don’t belong and let the writers f*cking write and the directors f*cking direct. They’re head of a movie production company, they’re the business side of show business, they know how to get the right creative people together on the right projects, and they know how to sell a movie like nobody’s business. However, that doesn’t mean they know how to make movies, nor does it mean they should have any sort of creative control on any of the projects they finance.

I’m so f*cking sick of hearing about how movies could have been if the brothers didn’t make changes or influence the script in the wrong direction. They hire writers to write scripts and directors to direct them… and that’s where they need to stay. Enough with their so-called creative juices jumping in to muddle otherwise solid projects all up—they need to start treating everyone like Quentin Tarantino and not question the filmmakers intentions, but rather let them do what they were hired to do. Who knows, maybe if they stuck to simply producing, they’d finally have a solid hit on their hands…