'I was obsessed with Rosemary’s Baby': Apartment 7A screenwriter on how the Paramount Plus horror movie avoided the curse of the movie sequel

Have Hollywood prequels become the new sequel?

Features By Jeff Spry published 25 October 2024

With Tinsel Town experiencing a severe drought of original ideas of late, anxious studios, screenwriters, and producers have been gazing into the rear view mirror more to examine existing films and TV shows to mine for potential cinematic projects branded as fresh prequels.

One of the most recent examples of this trend that uses established properties with built-in audiences can be seen in Paramount Plus’ Apartment 7A, an unsettling prequel that dovetails perfectly into director Roman Polanski’s award-winning 1968 supernatural shocker, Rosemary’s Baby.

That seminal film starring Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes as a yuppie couple who move into a venerable Manhattan apartment building housing a coven of Satanists rocked the established Hollywood roster that had been filled with bloated westerns and musicals. Here, Farrow’s character, Rosemary Woodhouse, is unwittingly drawn into a diabolical plan for her to become impregnated by the Devil after her husband, Guy, makes a dark deal to boost his acting career.

This was disturbing material for general audiences of the late ‘60s, but it was a surprise smash that year, becoming one of the best horror movies. Rosemary’s Baby ushered in a new era of maverick indie filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, and George Lucas. Based on a 1967 novel by Ira Levin and adapted for the screen by Polanski, the film earned a pair of coveted Oscar nods, including a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination and a Best Supporting Actress win for Ruth Gordon, who played the overbearing elderly occultist, Minnie Castevet.

A hanging thread you can pull

I was obsessed with Rosemary’s Baby and I always thought of Terry as this hanging thread that you could pullSkylar James, screenwriter

Directed by Natalie Erika James (Relic) from a sharp screenplay from Skylar James and starring Ozark’s Julia Garner, Dianne Wiest, and Kevin McNally, Apartment 7A targets the tragic character of Terry Gionoffrio, who commits suicide by diving from the notorious Bramford building in the 1968 movie – watch the trailer to get a glimpse of the prequel story to the 1960s horror hit. James, with co-screenwriter Christian White, provide her with a backstory as an injured dancer who comes into contact with the seemingly benevolent Satanists and moves into their ornate apartment free of charge. With dancing opportunities suspiciously blossoming, it’s not long before she’s being seduced into becoming the mother of the Antichrist.

“It was an original idea that I had. I was very, very green and this was my first thing that had gone through and I had written up this 12-page treatment,” James tells TechRadar. “I was obsessed with Rosemary’s Baby and I always thought of Terry as this hanging thread that you could pull. It was so interesting that there was story before this. Something had happened and she died this mysterious death and seems to be instantly forgotten. What was her place in the world? I kind of obsessed over it. A friend of mine also happened to be friends with John Krasinski and we got double-booked for dinner one night. I pitched him the idea of Terry and it turns out he’d studied Rosemary’s Baby for A Quiet Place. It was a really influential film for him.

“I never expected to hear from him again and I get a text the next morning from John. He wanted me to go meet with the other two producers on the movie right away. We workshopped the pages and all dug in on those 12 pages, and ended up selling that treatment and we were off to the races. Christian is Natalie’s writing partner and when she signed on as the director, she and Christian as co-writers did a pass on the script then.”

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