Moving on to Flowers In The Attic, it’s easier to understand any producer’s hesitation. It’s already been said that studios were ready to let Bousman give his vision a crack, ONLY if he removed the incestuous story tidbits. Bousman wouldn’t budge though, demanding to stay completely faithful to the source material, so talks about his remake dissipated until Lifetime stepped in with its own 2014 remake that INCLUDED incest – but lacked story, development, and everything else.
Here’s Darren’s reaction to the Lifetime franchise:
Here’s what’s crazy about [Flowers In The Attic]. I’ve been trying to get Flowers In The Attic made for a decade. Every single person has turned me down. I’m like “You don’t understand. This is a huge movie. It’s a huge franchise. It’s the scariest movie in the world.” Everyone turned me down. Then two years ago, Lifetime made it as a TV movie with Ellen Burstyn, and it was – I think – the number one cable film that year. It made me SO angry. And that was the Lifetime version! If they gave me Flowers In The Attic, I could make the most sadistic, crazy, horrific, and hauntingly beautiful film.
Just knowing the tone Bousman was able to achieve through Mother’s Day, I’m totally on-board with whatever vision he’d have for Flowers In The Attic (a story you should read a quick synopsis of if you don’t know it). But this is the nature of today’s Hollywood landscape, where the projects that SHOULD get made are given to safer bets who will water-down concepts for mass appeal. And this is what we get – Leprechaun: Origins and a Lifetime version of Flowers In The Attic.
I’m not saying Darren Lynn Bousman is the ONLY one who can do justice to the titles he mentioned, but I am asking why we aren’t giving projects to passionate filmmakers who can bring an existing story to life – and not the ones who can remove whatever inherent personality made the property memorable to begin with? The ideas and ambition are there, it just up to decision-makers to start having a little more faith in those who are willing to fight for their vision. But somehow I feel like that’s just too much to ask.
Who knows – maybe the existence of both properties might give Bousman another shot at both? Horror fans are CRAVING another Leprechaun film after Leprechaun: Origins failed so mightily, and if so many people are tuned into the television version of Flowers In The Attic, why not capitalize with a cinematic version? All I know is I’d sign Darren Lynn Bousman’s Leprechaun petition in a heartbeat, and the sooner the better if you ask me.
