Wes Craven loses cancer battle

Horror movie legend Wes Craven, the creator of Nightmare On Elm Street series, has lost his battle with brain cancer at the age of 76.

The first ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ movie was released in 1984. By then Craven was already of veteran of the movies having produced his first film ‘Together’ in 1971.

The first ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ was Craven’s 11th movie. It not only introduced the Freddie Krueger character, ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ was also Johnny Depp’s first movie.

Craven made the first ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ with a budget of $1.8 million. The series collectively has now grossed over $US370 million (about $AU520 million) in theatre ticket sales alone in the USA and billions globally in ticket and DVD sales.

His ‘Scream’ movies made even more. ‘Scream 1, 2, 3 and 4’ hold the top four places (in that order) as his highest grossing movies, even beating the ‘Nightmare’ series.

Craven’s most recent role was as Executive Producer in the new TV series of ‘Scream’.

Craven married three times. He has two children with his first wife Bonnie, Jonathan (1965) and Jessica (1968).