While the news has been long rumored, it’s now official.
According to an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Wes Craven has officially signed on to direct the fourth film in the Scream franchise. Recently finishing production on My Soul to Take, Craven’s latest horror movie, Wes will begin filming Scream 4 in May.
The Pulse: This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Scream 3, the last film to feature everybody’s favorite prank calling slasher, Ghostface.
In the years since director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson first made Scream — and had a direct hand in reigniting the teen horror movie genre — slasher movies enjoyed a brief renaissance before being overwhelmed by new, more torture-loving horror staples. I wonder how the shifting in horror paradigms will effect the latest Scream movie.
After rewatching Scream 3 recently, I was left with a theory that the new film might deal with a remake of Stab, the movie-within-a-movie that the Scream sequels revolved around. The Scream franchise was always known for its love for metatextual analysis. A plot that deals with a remake of the movie that was inspired by the original film’s plot would be ripe for plenty of in-jokes and commentary — the stuff that made the original Scream so memorable. With remakes of classic horror films so prevalent, this plot seems like a shoe-in for Scream 4.
The other thing that struck me while watching Scream 3 was how that even though the film still revolved around Neve Campbell’s character of Sidney Prescott, the movie really starred Courtney Cox and David Arquette’s supporting characters Gale Weathers and Dewey Riley — with the two of them receiving the lion’s share of screen time.
With Arquette and Cox among the first to sign up for the latest sequel and Campbell allegedly having to receive a lot of coaxing before she would sign on for the fourth film, I wonder if this will once again be Cox and Arquette’s film with Sidney Prescott being killed off in the fourth film’s opening sequence and paving the way for a new trilogy — something Williamson allegedly wants.
Either way, as a fan of the original trilogy, count me in for Scream 4 — as long as they move beyond the whole “Who else did Sidney’s mother sleep with?” angle.
What do you think the new film might/should deal with? Sound off below.
