The folks who brought you Scream are looking to sink their teeth into something scary again.
Director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson are reuniting with Dimension Films for the werewolf tale Cursed, which aims for the kind of howlingly scary fun of their previous collaborations, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Dimension co-chairman Bob Weinstein has given the go-ahead for production on the film, targeting August 8, 2003 as a tentative release date.
"Kevin wrote a fun, scary and surprise-filled script just like the original Scream. The only person I thought of to direct it was Wes Craven, and I couldn't be more excited to team them up again for what I think is another crowd-pleasing thrill ride," Weinstein told the Reporter. "In the way they made scary movies fun, Kevin and Wes will reinvent the werewolf genre."
Teen Wolf it's not, however.
Craven, who had been developing another horror movie, will instead start on Cursed, which is described as a "modern, hip twist on the classic werewolf tale" that will star a twentysomething ensemble cast.The film brings together again the filmmaker behind such classic slasher films as Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare on Elm Street with the genre-bending writer behind Dimension's mega-successful Scream trilogy and TV's teen soap Dawson's Creek.
"I look forward to being back in action with my 'partner in crime.' I've always thought Wes' unique touches of horror and humor fit perfectly with my writing, and I'm excited to be able to work with him again on a new and scary tale," Williamson added. "He's the master of the genre, and I'm a lucky man."
Williamson's ability to both spoof and scare led him to pen several like-minded scripts, including the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise, The Faculty and even his 1999 directorial debut, Teaching Mrs. Tingle.
Cursed will reportedly extensively use special effects and perhaps join the werewolf canon along such films as The Howling, Wolfen, An American Werewolf in London, and 1994's Wolf, starring Jack Nicholson.
But Dimension isn't the only company looking for a silver bullet of a blockbuster.
Warner Brothers recently signed up Angelina Jolie to star in Bitten, a film about a female werewolf. That film, based on a novel by Kelley Armstrong, is said to do for werewolves what Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire did for bloodsucking fiends.
Jolie, no stranger to the creepy stuff herself (she and ex-Billy Bob Thornton famously exchanged vials of their own blood), is expected to start work on Bitten as soon as she completes Tomb Raider 2: Cradle of Life and the Warner Bros. drama Taking Lives.