Carpenter Blasts Studio for Destroying His Script Vision

John Carpenter built his reputation on cult masterpieces, but Hollywood studios rarely gave him creative freedom. His influence on modern filmmakers remains strong through countless remakes of his work, yet major studios consistently interfered with his projects throughout his career.

Films like Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, Escape from New York, and The Thing proved Carpenter could deliver when studios stayed out of his way. But working with Hollywood's biggest players gradually wore him down.

Studio Meddling Becomes the Norm

20th Century Fox couldn't figure out Big Trouble in Little China and decided to interfere. That wasn't the final straw though. New Line Cinema's treatment of In the Mouth of Madness pushed him over the edge. "The head of the studio wanted to gut it and throw it out, said it didn't work," Carpenter recalled.

After that experience, most of his films were funded through independent or smaller production companies, even when major studios handled distribution. Only The Ward, his final film, broke this pattern.

The Early Betrayal That Stung

Studio interference plagued Carpenter from the beginning. After completing his debut feature Dark Star, producer Jack H Harris optioned an 11-page treatment Carpenter had written called Eyes. Columbia Pictures picked it up and asked Carpenter to write the full screenplay.

David Zelag Goodman heavily rewrote Carpenter's drafts before Eyes of Laura Mars went into production. The finished film starred Faye Dunaway as a fashion photographer who develops psychic abilities, seeing through a serial killer's eyes. The murderer targets people close to her, so she helps the NYPD track down the unknown culprit.

A Vision Completely Destroyed

"They got some things wrong, I thought," Carpenter told Under the Radar. His original concept explored the realistic consequences of such a psychic connection. "The original idea was that, for whatever reason, you can make it psychic, whatever, this woman begins to see through the eyes of a murderer."

Carpenter envisioned the physical toll this would take. "If that were true, if that really happened, all sorts of things would happen to her. When the killer moved, she wouldn't be able to. She'd be on the floor, fall over. It would be a visual that's not controlled by her."

None of these suspenseful elements made it into the final cut. "They just fucked it up in that sense," he said bluntly. "The explanation was on a TV set, I remember. They pointed to it. 'I see this'. Come on."

Carpenter received only a co-writing credit and was never considered to direct. The experience still bothered him years later. "It wasn't a pleasant experience. The original script was very good, I thought." His assessment of what happened once the studio took control was harsh: "It got shat upon."