Behind-The-Scenes Details From The 'Scream' Franchise
Scream took horror fans by storm when it premiered in 1996, taking on the genre's tropes head-on and turning them upside down. Since then, four more Scream films have reunited core characters while adding even more people and places to the franchise lore.
While there are plenty of eagle-eyed viewers who have picked out facts about the movies, the actors have more anecdotal Scream behind-the-scenes facts to share with adoring fans.
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It Was Drew Barrymore Who Suggested She Die In The First 15 Minutes Of 'Scream'
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- Scream
- Dimension Films
Scream broke a lot of rules of the horror genre, but it also attempted to trick audiences by casting Drew Barrymore as Casey Becker and using her predominately in the advertising for the film. Initially, Barrymore was signed on to play the movie's lead, Sidney Prescott. Barrymore changed her mind and decided she would rather take on the role of Casey, fulfilling screenwriter Kevin Williamson's hopes of having a big-name actor take on the part:
I wanted it to be this big, huge Janet Leigh moment. And then when she dies, you’re like, “Wait a second. Wasn’t she on the poster? Wait. What’s going to happen next?”
From that point on in the movie and eventually the franchise, fans knew any of their beloved characters could be killed at any time.
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Wes Craven Hired Matthew Lillard Immediately After His Audition
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- Scream
- Dimension Films
Matthew Lillard started out auditioning for the role of Billy Loomis and, like co-star David Arquette, ended up auditioning for another character altogether. According to Lillard, the casting director, Lisa Beach, asked him to come back to try for the role of Stu Macher.
Wes Craven was present for the audition, and Lillard remembers, "he actually gave it to me in the room. That’d never really happened before."
Beach went on to say Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, and Skeet Ulrich were all so good in their respective auditions, they blew her away.
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David Arquette Pitched His Interpretation Of Dewey Riley To Wes Craven, And It Landed Him The Part
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- Scream
- Dimension Films
David Arquette read through the Scream script and wanted to try for the part of Deputy Dewey Riley instead of Billy Loomis. However, Dewey was originally written as a dumb jock character, which isn't exactly Arquette's brand of acting.
Instead, Arquette had the idea of switching up Dewey's personality for someone who's supposed to have an air of authority, but who actually receives no respect from anyone at all.
According to Arquette, director Wes Craven loved the idea:
I met with Wes and I was like, “I really like this role.” And he was like, “Wow, I didn’t even consider that,” because [Dewey] was written as more of, like, the dumb jock character. I read it as a character that’s in a position of authority getting no respect.
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'Scream' (2022) Features A Secret And Touching Reunion Of Numerous Former Cast Members
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- Scream (2022)
- Paramount Pictures
The fifth Scream hit theaters in 2022 and brought back lots of original characters from the franchise's previous installments. Once again, Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott faced off with Ghostface alongside Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), Dewey Riley (David Arquette), and a new cast of characters. However, some of the fan favorites were actually in the movie via voice work.
In the Stab 8 clip that plays in the movie, Matthew Lillard (Stu Macher) provides the voice of the flamethrower Ghostface. Drew Barrymore (Casey Becker) plays the voice of the high school principal making an announcement right after the opening scene's death. In another scene from Scream (2022), multiple former cast and crew members lend their voices to the party scene toasting a character named Wes and the franchise's director, Wes Craven, who passed away in 2015.
Among those who read lines for the party scene are Jamie Kennedy (Randy Meeks), Hayden Panettiere (Kirby Reed), Henry Winkler (Principal Himbry), and Adam Brody (Detective Hoss), as well as Scream creator Kevin Williamson and Craven's widow Iya Labunka
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Drew Barrymore Accidentally Called 911 For Real, Which Alerted The Cops
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- Scream
- Dimension Films
Drew Barrymore worked five days to film her 15 minutes of the film, squeezing all of the screaming, hyperventilating, and terror into a short period of time. While on this tight schedule, the prop master reportedly forgot to unplug the iconic white phone before filming Barrymore's scenes, in which her character desperately attempts to contact 911 to save her from Ghostface. This led to Barrymore dialing 911 on the prop phone and accidentally calling the real thing, complete with her screams of pain and fear before disconnecting when director Wes Craven cut.
During one of the takes, police called Barrymore's phone back to check on the calls that sounded like a woman actually fighting for her life. This finally clued in the prop master, and he disconnected the phone.
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Skeet Ulrich Worried Matthew Lillard Ruined The First Take Of 'Scream'
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When Skeet Ulrich was cast as Billy in ‘Scream’, he took the role seriously. So seriously in fact that he missed any sense of humor in the script. Ulrich said,
I think part of it was the mindset of Billy and me getting into that mindset. I saw it as this very serious documentary about two killers in high school and I was researching serial killers and the psychology of them, so I didn't really key into the humor of the story until take one of day one.
While filming the fountain scene where the core cast sits and discusses the recent loss of their classmates, Ulrich said he watched Matthew Lillard and Jamie Kennedy be humorous, admitting “I just remember thinking, ’What are they doing?' ‘Don’t they know?' Like, ‘This isn’t funny. This isn't supposed to be funny.' And man, was I wrong.”
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The Ratings Board Was Surprisingly Cool With Wes Craven's Gorier, Fake Cut Of 'Scream 2'
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- Scream 2
- Dimension Films
Wes Craven had trouble with the MPAA ratings board when assigning a rating to the original Scream. In an effort to avoid the back and forth Craven dealt with while cutting the first film for an R rating, he decided to provide the MPAA with an overly violent cut of Scream 2.
Instead of having Phil Stevens (Omar Epps) suffer a single knife to the ear, this cut had three stabs. Randy Meeks's (Jamie Kennedy) death scene in this fake cut occurred on screen and was very long and violent. In the end, Craven was able to keep the scenes as he wanted them and get his R rating by removing the extra gore he never intended to keep.
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A Location Scout Randomly Found The Now-Iconic Ghostface Costume Just Sitting In A House
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- Dimension Films
In an oral history published by The Ringer, executive producer Marianne Maddalena spoke about finding the iconic Ghostface mask worn by the franchise's many killers. While looking for locations, one homeowner allowed the crew inside to look around. Sitting in a boy's room in the house was the Ghostface mask with white material attached to it.
Wes Craven loved the mask, but the studio wanted to own the Ghostface mask and costume so they could sell it and make money from the likeness. The studio had special effects legends Greg Nicotero and Bob Kirkman's company attempt to create a new mask for the film, but Craven didn't like it at all. Finally, the studio gave in to the director, and a new horror icon was born.
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Matthew Lillard Claims Stu Macher Was The Original Mastermind Behind The Killings In 'Scream 3'
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- Scream
- Dimension Films
In the original 1996 Scream, Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) is one of two killers who dons the Ghostface costume that terrorizes Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) throughout the movie. In the movie's epic final scenes, Sidney takes Stu out with a television to the face while he continues bleeding from a wound his co-killer Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) gave him. Some fans have wondered if Stu really died from his injuries or if he survived and went to jail.
In 2016, Lillard took part in a Scarefest Scream panel alongside Ulrich and teased a scrapped idea where his character returned for Scream 3:
From jail, I was kind of masterminding this attack against Sidney - Neve’s character - and so three weeks before we were supposed to start shooting, Columbine High School broke out, and they changed everything. They kind of took the script and threw it to the side, and they bought me out, and I never did the third one.
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Wes Craven Used Stories Of Animal Cruelty To Make Drew Barrymore Cry
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- Scream
- Dimension Films
Drew Barrymore's opening scene was filmed in a very short five-day period, and she was adamant that her tears and hyperventilating be as real as possible.
In an effort to assist her, director Wes Craven told animal lover Barrymore terrible stories of animal cruelty to get the tears flowing. To simulate hyperventilating, Barrymore ran around the set to become out of breath.
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Script Leaks Plagued The Production Of 'Scream 2'
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- Dimension Films
After the success of Scream, finding out anything about the production of the sequel was high on a lot of people's list of priorities. According to Wes Craven, “[Writer] Kevin [Williamson] sent us, I think, something like 30 pages by email. We read it, it was fabulous - it was on the internet, in its entirety, that night.”
That leaked script had Sidney Prescott's (Neve Campbell) boyfriend, Derek Feldman (Jerry O'Connell), and her BFF roommate, Hallie McDaniel (Elise Neal), as the Ghostface killer couple. Lots of people believed this to be the sequel's original ending, but it was actually one of several false endings created to keep the real script a secret. Writer Williamson even revealed that one draft had Dewey Riley (David Arquette) taking up the Ghostface mantle.
In the end, only two killers were left standing during the big reveal, and Williamson said Debbie Salt (Laurie Metcalf) and Mickey Altieri (Timothy Olyphant) were always the true Ghostface gang for this sequel.
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Kristen Stewart Was Asked To Be The Drew Barrymore Of 'Scream 4'
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- Seberg
- Amazon Studios
During a 2022 interview, Kristen Stewart revealed she was offered a role in the opening scene of Scream 4:
But it was just going to be one person, and I was like, "I can’t do a Drew [Barrymore]. I can’t touch that." Do you know what I mean? But, yeah, so then they ended up doing, if I’m remembering correctly, a larger sequence and not just one victim.
Stewart declined the role, and writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven settled on the meta opening audiences saw when the film premiered in 2011. This replaced the original script's version of the opening, in which the series's main character, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), fights Ghostface.
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