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

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

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.”

Protecting a legacy property

As one of the pioneering horror movies of all time, Rosemary’s Baby was a revolutionary flick when it was released and the box office tally reflects that, with it raking in $33 million off of a $3.2 million budget. James was well aware of the classic’s status in Hollywood history and was careful to respect the particular tone and flavor of the source book and Polanski’s iconic film.

“We’re standing on the shoulders of giants and you want to honor that work,” James explains. “And there’s a tremendous amount of film buffs who are really familiar with that work and hold it close. So you want to be loyal to the look, the feel, but then at the same time you want to do something new with the story. It’s such an amazing movie that you don’t want to go in there and tinker with it if you don’t have something new to say. Weirdly, as much time has gone by, we’re still having conversations about abortion and women’s rights. It’s an interesting way to look at the desperation that still echoes today.

“If you look at the original novel there’s a little bit more information on Terry. Her big dream in the book is going to secretarial school. Which is such a fun little nugget. But how do we update that for 2024? Terry is an ambitious person and knows she can do more, so that’s where the whole idea of dance came in. How do you honor that spirit of this woman in the 1960s who dreams of being independent and how can we make it feel fresh and give her her own identity?”

Paramount was naturally very protective of Rosemary’s Baby as a legacy property and refrained from pushing Apartment 7A’s creative team to stuff the story with a jump scare a minute.

“It’s a different type of horror,” adds James. “It’s a conceptual horror. Minnie Castevet is the scariest character in the movie, and the Devil is in the movie, so that’s definitely saying something. She’s so terrifying because it’s this sort of embodied evil that walks among us. Whether she’s really empowered by the Devil or whether she’s just your dangerous person right behind you in a department store, she’s ruthless either way. You don’t find out until the third act of the movie when the walls are closing in on Terry and you get the realization that this danger is very real. And Julia was so great, she just killed it.”

Apartment 7A is currently streaming on Paramount Plus.

7 horror movie prequels to stream

Looking for more paranormal and horror prequels to watch on the best streaming services for the spookiest time of the year? Here are seven scary suggestions to sample to make your Halloween season even sweeter.

These are available on multiple platforms as well as offered for purchase via online outlets. The First Omen and Prometheus are available to stream on Hulu in the US and Disney Plus internationally, while A Quiet Place: Day One and The Thing are only available in the US on Paramount Plus and Shudder, respectively.

Meanwhile, Netflix subscribers can find Annabelle and The Nun in the US, while those in the UK can catch those titles on Sky. As for Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist, that’s only on Prime Video in the US or the best free streaming service Tubi.

1. The First Omen (2024)
2. Prometheus (2012)
3. The Thing (2011)
4. Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist (2005)
5. Annabelle (2014)
6. A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
7. The Nun (2018)