No discussion of New Line Cinema is complete without the phrase “The House That Freddy Built.” While attributing the success of New Line (and it’s eventual acquisition by Warner Bros.) solely to the “A Nightmare On Elm Street” franchise may be oversimplifying, there’s no question that “Elm Street” saved the studio and put it on the map, and that the series’ massive box office take and cultural impact helped lead to future victories like the “Lord of the Rings” films and the “Conjuring” franchise. On the one hand, the prosperity of the “Elm Street” movies is yet another example of the power and popularity of the horror genre as a whole. It’s a lesson that mainstream Hollywood seems to continually forget and learn all over again; after all, the box office of 2025 would be nowhere near what it is without massive horror hits like “Sinners” and “Weapons.” Yet the ubiquity of Freddy Krueger during the 1980s and early 1990s transcended even the average successful horror film. Freddy became a true successor to other horror icons like Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and others, appearing not just in the film series but in spin-off TV shows, comic books, toys, and other tie-in materials.
Of course, there’s no way to predict what film and character might hit it that big with the culture. Freddy’s popularity even baffled his creator, Wes Craven, as the 1994 meta-sequel “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” tried to get to the bottom of why this guy became so huge. Given how quickly New Line put a sequel to “Nightmare on Elm Street” into production after the original film made a killing at the box office in late 1984, one would assume that at least the studio had an inkling that Freddy could be big business. However, according to a recent exclusive interview with Jack Sholder, director of “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge,” this was hardly the case. As Sholder explained, New Line Cinema was not prepared for “Elm Street” to become a franchise, and this short-sightedness at the beginning of the series led to some issues with “Freddy’s Revenge,” things that almost prevented Freddy from continuing his reign of terror.
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According to Sholder, when New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye came across Craven’s script for “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” it wasn’t necessarily dollar signs that Shaye was seeing in it. Sholder explained:
There was a little snafu regarding an “Elm Street” sequel, of course, which is that the film was never intended to support a continuing story. In the last days of shooting on “Elm Street,” Shaye did have the foresight to ask Craven to shoot some more open-ended concluding moments. That said, as Sholder observed, sequels in those days were “kind of looked down upon,” and that New Line’s distribution arm believed that if a sequel made 70% of what the original film made then it would be considered a success. In other words, today’s mentality, which is that sequels can (and maybe should) outgross their predecessors had not come to the fore yet. As Sholder continued:
Although the concept of franchises was still pretty new in the mid-80s, some tropes had already begun to emerge, one of which being that there should be a returning character or characters in a sequel if possible. However, while New Line Cinema certainly wanted Freddy Krueger to remain the supernatural villain of “Elm Street,” they nearly didn’t bring back actor Robert Englund to reprise the role. As Sholder recalled, the studio considered the title and the character more important than the actor at this stage, similar to how other slasher villains like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees had interchanged performers in their sequels:
Thankfully, Englund did come on board “Freddy’s Revenge.” Even so, the movie would end up featuring a different sort of Krueger than seen in Craven’s film. This Freddy would be a little more verbose (though not yet fully comedic), and instead of invading the dreams of kids on Elm Street, he would try to break into the real world by invading the dreams of (and eventually possessing) Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton). This change in the rules makes “Freddy’s Revenge” intriguingly unique in retrospect, but did cause some problems for the film’s initial reputation amongst fans. It’s also indicative of how no one at New Line was thinking about the franchise’s longevity, as Sholder explained:
Sholder’s correct in saying that a sequel following the rules established in “Freddy’s Revenge” would’ve been a dead end for the series, especially given that it would have taken away so much of what was to become the franchise’s hallmarks. Still, the benefits of the creative freedom given to Sholder and company on “Freddy’s Revenge,” along with New Line only looking at one film at a time and not a cinematic universe, are all qualities that today’s studios and producers may wish to revisit. It’s always good to have an eye on potential futures, but don’t put your cart before the horse.
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