When Scream debuted in late 1996, few would have known that it would spawn not only a franchise, but a slasher movement that would take over movie culture for years to come.
With a box office more than ten times its production budget, Shout it declared loud and bold that the genre was back, and it had in its pockets the fickle audience studies that young people wanted most.
A combination of clever meta-references and deconstructions of horror films and gore. Shout it was a phenomenon. And when something is successful, the formula is to do more.
Shout Screenwriter Kevin Williamson celebrates the 25th anniversary of Call 2the turbo production of which saw it launched just one year later in December 1997. And he revealed to The Hollywood Reporter the lengths he and director Wes Craven had to go to keep their twist ending a secret.
when Call 2 production was rushed, all eyes were on the film and everyone wanted to know the ending.
It’s hard to keep a secret in Hollywood when hundreds of people are involved in a shoot, so Williamson came up with a plot with false endings. A few different endings managed to leak out during production, but that was all by design.
“We leaked the first one [fake ending] because we knew we couldn’t hold it back,” Williamson said THR. “Everyone was interested. We were also casting the actors, so we sent the script without the last 75 pages.
“But then Wes said, ‘No, you have to come sit in the room and read it in front of us.'” And so Wes would have the actors come in and read it before they auditioned, and we just knew that people would start talking.
“There was so much interest in what was going on Call 2 that we wrote a fictitious script and leaked it. And then we had a second fictional script that we leaked as well, but it didn’t really get too far.
“And then the real one came out, but no one seemed to care when the real one came out.
“Those mock scripts were kind of ridiculous now that you think about it, but we just wanted the movie to be fun. We wanted to make sure we kept the surprises because a movie like this depends on its twists and turns.”
One such false ending put David Arquette’s beloved character Dewey as the author along with someone else. Dewey, as fans knew, was one of the mainstays of the franchise, surviving many sequels.
But it wouldn’t always be like that. Williamson said Dewey was originally slated to be part of the body count in the original film. His death was written into the first script of Shoutbut then Craven decided on a backup plan.
“Wes said, ‘We’re going to film this little piece of him getting into the ambulance, just in case,'” Williamson recalled. “And it was the best decision we ever made.”
Saving Dewey meant turning out the lights for someone else.
“The second Dewey lived in Shoutit was RIP to Randy Call 2, because we had to kill a legacy. We had to kill someone who was involved Shout, and this was done halfway through so we could raise the stakes. He also wanted to upset the audience and make them angry with the killer.”
But even now, Williamson, who is also known for creating Dawson’s Creek and writing horrors included Teaching Mrs. Tingle, I know what you did last summer i The Facultyhe wonders what Randy (Jamie Kennedy) would do if he survived.
“The character had a lot more life left in it, so I would have liked to have seen him as an adult. I would have loved to see what he became,” she said. “I would love to see how he turned his love of horror movies into a career. I would love to see what his trauma was like after he survived, but unfortunately I killed him.”
Call 2which starred Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Live Schrieber, Laurie Metcalf, Timothy Olyphant, Jada Pinkett Smith and Jerry O’Connell earned $172 million at the box office.
The Scream franchise includes five films and a television series, including the recently released Shout (2022) which reunited the core cast and introduced a new generation of characters.
Call VI is due to launch in 2023, but Campbell will not be returning after contract negotiations fell through.
According to Deadline , Campbell said, “Sadly, I won’t be doing the next one Shout movie
“As a woman, I’ve had to work really hard in my career to establish my worth, especially when it comes down to it Shout. I felt that the offer that was presented to me was not commensurate with the value that I have brought to the franchise.
“It has been a very difficult decision to move forward. To all my Shout fans i love you You have always been incredibly supportive. I am eternally grateful to you and what this franchise has given me over the past 25 years.”
Craven died in 2015, but the torch has been passed to directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, who previously helmed the fun and frantic slasher. ready or not.
Scream 2 is streaming on Binge*, Paramount+ and Stan
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