AP Images/Invision
"He gave me notes on the first pilot I did for this show, and everything that he had to say about it was so generous and so supportive," Jill Blotevogel tells THR.
The world of horror lost one of the greats on Sunday when Wes Craven lost his battle with brain cancer and died at 76, just two days before the MTV adaptation of his 1996 hit Scream wraps its first season.
"We were totally blind-sided," Scream co-showrunner Jill Blotevogel tells THR. "He has been such an incredible influence on us and essentially since I’ve been working on this series for a year and a half, I just realized that without Wes, I would have been doing something very different with my life. He made this possible and to lose him, I don’t know. I just think the world in general has lost some amazing entertainment to come."
While some of Craven’s projects that were in development at the time of his passing will still move forward, Blotevogel thinks Craven still had many more ideas to share with the world.
"I wanted to see what he was going to keep doing and that is another thing that is striking me," she says. "He created the horror that defined a lot of people’s upbringing; a lot of people who are making horror right now learned everything at his knee. The loss, we’re still processing it. I’m ticked off at the world. I want to know what else he had planned and what else he was going to make. Seventy-six, that’s a good age but you could just tell he had a lot more to do."
Although Craven previously said he was attached in name only to the Scream TV series based on his film, Blotevogel reveals he had an impact on the creative direction from the very beginning of the pilot.
"His involvement in the show and his blessing of the show and some of the things we changed or adjusted — the benefits were immeasurable," says Blotevogel. "He gave me notes on the first pilot I did for this show, and everything that he had to say about it was so generous and so supportive. When I got something right, he totally said, 'I love this! This scared me, this is cool.' And when he saw a way to make something better, he was very kind in his delivery of that and his advice."
Blotevogel credits both Craven’s talents as well as the way that he nurtured aspiring horror filmmakers and showrunners as part of his legacy.
"Everything that I’ve read and everything that I know from other people he’s worked with, along with my experience with him, his kindness and generosity was so different from this industry that can be very cutthroat and harsh," says Blotevogel. "He was always a gentleman."
Expect the MTV series to pay tribute to Craven during Tuesday's season finale.
"I’m sure it’s going to be a solemn moment at the end dedicated to him," says Blotevogel. "This is his world and this is his legacy. It certainly casts a bit of a sad air to the finale but I also hope that we do him justice. I hope somewhere he’s watching and enjoying the end to season one."
The season finale of Scream airs Tuesday at 10 p.m. on MTV.
