Trivia / Cursed (2005)

• Box Office Bomb: The film's extensive reshoots ballooned the budget to at least $75 million, with some estimates as high as $100 million. It only managed to earn $29 million worldwide.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Wes Craven had no good things to say about his experience and the final product, widely considered to be among his worst films.
    "I mean, that went on for two-and-a-half years of my life for a film that wasn't anything close to what it should have been..."
  • Christina Ricci said the shooting was a disaster and hard to keep up with.
    Ricci: We shot it three times. I couldn’t keep it straight. By the time we went to shoot the last version, I was so confused that I actually had to ask, “So are we doing the version where that person is my brother or my boyfriend?”
  • Judy Greer had fun making the film and thought it had lots of potential, but was baffled by all the behind-the-scenes meddling.
    Greer: I don't know why that movie got so fucked up. I don't understand it. I thought the script was fine. Honest to god, I didn't get the big deal. I don't know who kept making them fuck with it...
  • Jesse Eisenberg has described the final film as "so stupid", and the re-shoots just made everything more cliched.
  • The team responsible for the practical effects provide audio commentary on the DVD where they mostly laugh and ridicule the work done by the CGI team.
  • Speaking of the special effects, Rick Baker and his team were brought on to provide transformation effects, but the chaotic production schedule meant they couldn't get the right resources and people together in time. In the end, most of the practical effects were replaced with CGI, but Baker was still credited, something he fought the Weinsteins on because so little of his work ended up being used.
• Dawson Casting: All the 'teens' were played by early twenties actors.
  • Jesse Eisenberg was twenty.
  • Milo Ventimiglia was twenty-five.
  • Kristina Anapau was twenty-three.
• Deleted Role: Many actors filmed scenes that were never shown. Among those who fell victim to the Cursed curse were Skeet Ulrich (whose character was originally a central figure), Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, Corey Feldman, and James Brolin.
• Executive Meddling: Oh God. This film was more or less shot twice because of production problems. A lot of said problems can be blamed firmly on Harvey Weinstein.
  • The first version featured almost an entirely different supporting cast. And then the second version of it was hacked up in order to get a PG-13 rating.
  • The climax with Jake attacking Jimmy and Ellie in their home was ordered last minute, despite making no sense. The reason was that the Weinsteins wanted the climax to be like Scream (1996) where the boyfriend turns out to be the villain.
  • The nightmare where Ellie dreams she bites Jake's neck and blood spurts out was another request by producers, because "it's a Wes Craven film".
  • Legendary visual effects artist Rick Baker was fired from the movie, and the werewolf effects he created were replaced by CGI ones.
• Fake American: The Australian Portia De Rossi plays the American fortune teller Zela.
• Hey, It's That Place!: The school Jimmy, Bo and Brooke go to looks a lot like Sunnydale High. Or the West Beverly High.
• Money, Dear Boy: Wes Craven was convinced to direct when the studio offered him twice his usual fee. He later said the experience convinced him never to use this trope.
• The Other Marty: Mandy Moore filmed most of her scenes as Jenny. But production was halted so the script could be rewritten, and she was replaced with Mya.
• Production Posse: The film reunites Craven with a lot of the crew who worked on the Scream films including screenwriter Kevin Williamson, editor Patrick Lussier, and composer Marco Beltrami. It also reunited him with many cast members that he had worked with previously including Skeet Ulrich, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley (though their roles were cut), Portia de Rossi and Joshua Jackson.
• Star-Derailing Role: The film, being hated by audiences and critics alike, was the first of two for Christina Ricci. She tried to rebound three years later by appearing in a big blockbuster; unfortunately, said "big blockbuster" was the indifferently received Speed Racer.
• Those Two Actors: Werewolf victims Shannon Elizabeth and Mya had both previously appeared in the James Bond video game Everything or Nothing as Bond girls a year before this movie.
• Troubled Production: The film's title proved fitting.
  • To start with, it originally wasn't a werewolf film at all. Williamson had written it as a Serial Killer film in the vein of The Silence of the Lambs (albeit with a twist), but a writers' strike in 2001 forced him to put it on hold. Things finally got moving again when Warner Bros. announded an adaptation of Kelley Armstrong's The Otherworld novels, leading Dimension Films, seeking a dueling film, to snatch up Williamson's script in October 2002 and have the twist be that the killer was a werewolf. A release date of August 2003 was announced.
  • After eleven weeks of filming, with about 70% of the film having been shot by Craven's estimate, Dimension put production on "extended hiatus" in order to do a series of rewrites, concerned over the special effects and The Reveal of Scott Baio As Himself being the werewolf. What came out of the reshoots was almost an entirely different film — the serial killer plot was dropped entirely, in favor of a story about Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg's characters getting bitten by a werewolf. Mandy Moore dropped out and was replaced by Mya due to the delays, Skeet Ulrich dropped out when he saw the changes to the script (leading to his character being removed), Baio's role was cut down to a cameo, special effects artist Rick Baker was replaced by Greg Nicotero, the director of photography was also replaced, and several other actors (Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, James Brolin, and Corey Feldman) all saw the scenes they shot removed entirely from the film, pushing the planned release back to October 2004. In a later interview, co-star Judy Greer would remark, "I think they said we have four movies worth of footage".
  • It wouldn't meet that date either, thanks to one last insult: the film was delayed again so that the studio could edit it down to a PG-13. Craven felt insulted by this decision, as he and everybody involved intended to make an R-rated film, calling it "completely disrespectful" and claiming that "they shot themselves in the foot with a shotgun."
  • The film was finally dumped into theaters in February 2005, a year and a half after it was supposed to come out. It quickly became a critical and box office dud that is often cited as Craven's worst film, with both Williamson and Craven viewing it harshly. The drawn-out production caused Craven to drop out of the American remake of Pulse (which he had also co-written) just ten days before filming began, as both this film and that one were Money, Dear Boy jobs for him, and his experience with Cursed had soured him on working just for the money. (To his credit, given the Pulse remake's poor reception, he probably dodged a bullet.)
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original plot of the film would have three different people getting bitten by a werewolf. Skeet Ulrich was also one of these and would have served as Ellie's love interest. Somewhere along the lines Ulrich was cut from the film completely and Ellie and Jimmy became brother and sister. This explains why the characters are credited with different last names.
  • It was also going to be rated R but the studio insisted on gore being cut down to make it a PG-13 film.
  • The climax was scripted to take place in a Hollywood themed wax museum. It was rewritten to have the scenes take place in a movie-themed nightclub. Many of the same props and sets were used.
  • The opening scene at the pier originally had Skeet Ulrich with Shannon Elizabeth. Although the scenes were reshot with Mya in the former's place, when Becky is calling out for her friend, she's actually saying "Vince" (the name of Skeet Ulrich's character). "Jenny" was dubbed over in post production.
  • The wrestling scene was planned to end with Jimmy attacking Bo, but stopping himself after he caught his reflection in Bo's eyes. Part of this scene is in the trailer.
  • Jenny's death scene was far more graphic, and she would be found in the elevator with her stomach ripped open. This isn't even included on the R-rated DVD - but a picture of it did make it into a Fangoria article.

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