Here’s an exclusive from Bloody Disgusting that’s got me ready to head to the Miramax offices in New York City and start searching in closets and storage rooms: Cary Granat, who was COO of Dimension (a label within Miramax) from 1995 to 2000, has confirmed that there’s an original cut of Wes Craven’s 2005 werewolf movie Cursed, and that it’s good enough that it should be released.
“Yes, yes, yes, 100%,” Granat told us when we asked about the Craven cut of Cursed in a phone interview promoting his new movie, Welcome to Mercy.
Since Cursed came after Granat’s tenure at Dimension, he’s not sure where to find the original cut, only that it’s got to be somewhere.
“It still exists,” Granat said. “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.”
For context: Cursed was shot in 2003, with an R-rated script, Wes Craven’s direction, and werewolf effects by Rick Baker, but then spent two years in development hell as Dimension execs Bob and Harvey Weinstein (yeah, that Harvey Weinstein) proceeded to ruin it. Massive reshoots cut it down to a disjointed PG-13 mess that radically mangled the plot, omitted many actors, changed the ending twice, relied heavily on KNB for CG for werewolf effects (although I still like the werewolf design), and was ultimately disavowed by Craven.
There’s no telling what state this original cut is in, although it’s probably not complete – Wikipedia claims that only 90% of the original script was shot, leaving some gaps that wouldn’t be covered by the “three films worth” of footage they got during the film’s time in purgatory. I’d be glad to see it in any state, though, especially with some Rick Baker werewolf effects.