Wes Craven Dies: Veteran Director Of ‘Scream,’ ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ Was 76

Director Wes Craven died today in Los Angeles. Craven was 76 and passed away after battling brain cancer.

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From his first feature film The Last House On The Left in 1972, Craven immediately made his mark as a genre-bending, bracingly innovative horror director with a biting sense of humour.

Craven also consistently demonstrated that he was a filmmaker with heart.

Craven reinvented the youth horror genre again in 1984 with the classic and very scary A Nightmare on Elm Street, which also introduced a then-unknown Johnny Depp.

The movie spawned several sequels, most of them directed and written by others.

In 1996 Craven experienced a rebirth in horror with the release of Scream, which was written by Kevin Williamson. Scream sparked multiple sequels and spoofs.

Craven took a breather from horror between Scream 2 and Scream 3, when he seized an opportunity to direct a non-genre film for Miramax, Music of the Heart (1999), which earned star Meryl Streep an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

That same year he completed his first novel, The Fountain Society published by Simon & Schuster.

Remaining creatively engaged and active until his death, Craven had signed an overall TV deal with Universal Cable Productions.

He had a number of projects in development including The People Under the Stairs and We Are All Completely Fine with Syfy, Disciples with UCP, and Sleepers with Federation Entertainment.

He also was serving as exec producer on the Scream series for MTV.

Craven also recently wrote and was scheduled to direct Thou Shalt Not Kill segment for The Weinstein Company/WGN’s Ten Commandments miniseries.

Additionally he was working on a graphic novel series based on his original idea Coming of Rage for Liquid Comics in collaboration with Steve Niles.

He also served as an executive producer of the upcoming feature The Girl in the Photographs which will premiere next month the 2015 Toronto Film Festival.