Wes Craven Comes Clean About The ‘Scream’ Series And His Freddy Krueger Regrets

Anyone who has seen the new trailer for MTV’s television adaptation of Wes Craven’s Scream knows that the MTV version has done away with the famous Ghostface mask. The new Scream killer’s mask is blurry and somewhat concealed in the trailer, but one thing is certain: it’s not Ghostface.

If you’re thinking about writing an angry email to Wes Craven, describing in detail your feelings of injustice concerning this alteration in the famous killer’s persona, Mr. Craven advises you not to waste your time. But Wes Craven is clearly an executive producer for MTV’s Scream, right?

“I just put my name on it,” Wes explains. “I was too busy to do much else.”

Although Wes had no part in the idea to scrap the famous Scream mask, Mr. Craven would have advised against it if he’d been asked. In a recent interview, Mr. Craven admits that he learned the hard way that there’s some truth to the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“In general,” Wes admitted, “we didn’t mess with the mask at all. It’s something we didn’t try to change. With Freddy [Krueger] and the New Nightmare, I felt that I probably should have stuck with the original face. [With Scream,] we just let Ghostface be Ghostface.”

“It would have been safer [not to change Freddy],” Mr. Craven added. “I’m not going to speculate in public, probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it, but you know, sometimes you realize that something’s not broken, so don’t fix it. And that was the course we took on all the Scream films: Don’t mess with that, it’s just perfect.”

There was no doubt for Mr. Craven that the success of the Scream films hinged on the killer’s mask. As soon as Wes came upon the Ghostface mask, Craven said he told studio executives that the mask was vital to the project.

Fun World created the mask in 1991 as a part of a line of Halloween costumes, but it wasn’t until Wes Craven spotted the costume and incorporated it into the Scream films that Ghostface’s popularity really began to soar.

Although MTV has denied that the decision to change the mask was budget-related, reports confirm that talks did occur between the network and Fun World regarding the company’s licensing fee. Mr. Craven might have recommended paying the fee if he’d been involved in those meetings.

[Featured Image: Wes Craven courtesy of Kevin Winter/Getty Images]