The Mask director Chuck Russell recently unveiled some interesting details about one of Jim Carrey’s most iconic films – that it was almost a horror movie.
While speaking with XFINITY regarding the 30th anniversary of his film A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, he happened to explain this little bit on The Mask:
“It’s a great example of really fighting for your vision in a film. We changed it from a horror film into a comedy. It was originally conceived as being a horror film. That was a real battle. New Line wanted a new kind of Freddy movie.”
It definitely would have been an intriguing route to go, although one must wonder if it would’ve been as successful. The Mask was a big hit for Carrey and crew; had the film been a darker horror venture, it might not have seen that success. Russell continued by explaining Freddy Krueger resemblance:
“By coincidence, I had seen the same original Mask comic they ended up buying, and I thought, ‘That’s really cool, but it’s too derivative of Freddy Krueger.’ It really was. He would put on the mask and kills people. And have one-liners. It was a really cool, splatterpunk, black and white comic. They’ve redone the comics to be more like my movie, but the original comics were really cool, dark and scary.”
Man, that definitely would have been fun to see in a movie. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, that version never came to fruition and the series gradually became more lighthearted. The movie was followed with an animated series and about a decade later a much sillier sequel without Carrey’s involvement. Naturally, it ended up being critically panned, and the franchise has since been left in the dark.
Maybe one day we’ll get a chance to see them try again with a darker interpretation more in line with the comics, but only time will tell.
Source: XFINITY