Franchise Killers: Scream 4

[TMC]

http://lebeauleblog.com/2015/10/03/f...lers-scream-4/

For the month of October, Franchise Killers will be covering movies that ended film series in the horror genre. So we’ll be looking at movies that killed franchises about killers. Since today is Neve Campbell‘s birthday, I thought we would kick things off with a look at Scream 4.

When the first Scream was released in 1996, the slasher genre which had thrived in the eighties had run out of gas. Kevin Williamson’s script, originally titled Scary Movie, got to have its cake and eat it too. It served as an homage to the splatter movies Williamson grew up loving as well as a satire of the genre. Williamson wrote his original script over the course of three days. In an effort to sell the movie as the first in a series, he also wrote up five-page treatments for two sequels.

When Miramax purchased the script for Scary Movie, they wanted Williamson to tone down the violence. They were more interested in the movie’s comedic elements. But Williamson wanted Scream to work as a horror movie as well. He got his wish when genre master Wes Craven agreed to direct. Craven guaranteed that the movie would build suspense with horror before giving the audience a release through laughter.

But Scream didn’t just mix horror and comedy. It also tapped into the youth market by casting a group of appealing young actors like Campbell and Drew Barrymore who gave the first movie a touch of star power. Scream‘s success meant that every young actor appearing on a coming-of-age drama on Fox or the WB would get their shot at horror movie stardom.

The success of the first movie took Hollywood by surprise. Suddenly, Williamson was a rising star. His previously unproduced scripts like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Teaching Miss Tingle became hot properties. He even got into TV with his own coming-of age drama, Dawson’s Creek. In no time, the market was flooded with Scream copycats including two Scream sequels.

Miramax wanted Scream 2 right away. Fortunately, Williamson had planned for sequels and was able to turn the script around quickly. Unfortunately, many of the script details including the identity of the killers leaked on-line. So Williamson was forced to rewrite the script on the fly. Not surprisingly, it’s not the writer’s best work and the revelation of the new killers comes completely out of left field. But Scream was still a hot franchise in 1997 and the sequel delivered at the box office.

Naturally, Miramax wanted to release a third movie as soon as possible. But Williamson had become a very busy man with his hit TV show and multiple movie projects. After a series of fights with studio head, Harvey Weinstein, Williamson was replaced as the writer of Scream 3. Ehren Kruger ended up writing a script based on Williamson’s notes and ideas. Once again, changes needed to be made. This time, it was due to news headlines over the Columbine shootings.

Scream 3 was released four years after the first movie. By then, the horror wave that had been inspired by Scream was winding down. Regardless of the reasons why, tastes were changing. Supernatural horror stories like The Others and The Ring were about to eclipse slasher movies like Scream. It didn’t help matters that Scream 3 was the weakest entry in the series to date.

While Scream 3 ended up being profitable, it was a step down from the box office performance of the first two movies. Worse yet, it cost three times what the first movie cost. Scream 3 didn’t kill the franchise. But it did put it on life support while Harvey Weinstein figured out what he wanted to do next.

Eleven years later, Weinstein decided it was time to revive the series. He got the old band back together. Williamson and Weinstein patched things up and the writer returned to write Scream 4. Wes Craven agreed to return as the director. And the principle actors; Campbell, David Arquette and Courteney Cox reprised their roles from the earlier movies.

The idea behind the fourth movie was that it was going to acknowledge how the genre had changed since the original Scream. Cell phones were now prevalent. The sequel also introduced a lot of fresh faces like Emma Roberts and Hayden Panettiere while making fun of horror reboots that introduce new cast members to carry on the series.

Once again, there were problems with the script. Rewrites were needed and Williamson wasn’t available. So Scream 3 writer, Ehren Kruger, pitched in again. According to Craven, “Look, there was a bumpy period when things shifted over from Kevin to Ehren. I signed up to do a script by Kevin and unfortunately that didn’t go all the way through the shooting. But it certainly is Kevin’s script and concept and characters and themes.”

Scream 4 was released to mostly negative reviews. Some critics gave it a pass noting that it was good to have the old series back and that it was an improvement over the previous movie. It opened in second place at the box office behind the animated bird movie, Rio. Previously, such a thing would have been unthinkable. Domestically, Scream 4 was a flop. It grossed a mere $38 million dollars. But it did much better overseas bringing its worldwide gross up to nearly $100 million dollars.

Despite the fourth movie’s lackluster performance, Weinstein refused to rule out a fifth installment. The worldwide grosses had him entertaining the idea of another Scream. And Williamson was under contract to write it. But ultimately, that didn’t happen. In 2015, two events happened that make another Scream movie seem unlikely. One, the series became the basis for a TV show on MTV. And two, sadly, Wes Craven passed away. While I imagine Scream will return to the big screen someday, it will likely be in the form of a reboot when and if it happens.

Let’s break this down:

How many movies in the series? 4

How many of them were good? 1.5 (Scream 2 has its moments, so I’m giving it half credit)

Health of the franchise before it died? Everyone assumed Scream 3 had already killed the franchise

Likelihood of a reboot? Scream lives on as a TV show. Someday in the distant future, there will probably be more movies.

Any redeeming value? Some of the cameos are fun