One of the few major productions to plow through the height of the pandemic was the fifth Scream, which filmed last fall in Wilmington, North Carolina. While it won’t be slashing its way into theaters until next year, the filmmakers are currently in post-production tinkering with what will be the first without Wes Craven.
The current incarnation is being directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett of the filmmaking group Radio Silence (Ready or Not, V/H/S, Southbound) and marks the return of Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, David Arquette as Dewey Riley, and Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers.
In an interesting bit of news, Bloody Disgusting exclusively learned today that there are not only multiple versions of the Scream screenplay, but also the movie, with the purpose to obfuscate fans who want to spoil the final product.
This was confirmed to me by the filmmakers earlier this morning.
This shouldn’t surprise hardcore fans of the Scream franchise as leaks have been a problem in the past. A Scream 2 draft from writer Kevin Williamson famously leaked online, forcing last minute rewrites that changed the movie’s ending. Craven and the team had to be much more careful going forward, and it sounds like the new creative team is following suit.
Is it possible they have “dummy” endings out there for the new film, to be extra safe?
Scream won’t be calling audiences back to theaters until Jan. 2022, but it sure does sound like the fun is just beginning. Are we being toyed with by the studio and filmmakers? I guess time will tell. All I know is that our obsession with Scream is part of what makes this entire process so damn entertaining.
