Rumor: Craven, Williamson & Studio at odds over Scream 4

News, Rumors

If rumors circulating around the Internet are to be believed, the set of Scream 4 is not a happy place right now.

It began when Zap2It reported that Ethan Kruger, the writer who had previously taken over the franchise from original scribe Kevin Williamson for Scream 3, had been brought in to do some rewrite work for the film.  These rumors stated that Kruger’s script changes have left several characters — including Hayden Panettiere’s chick movie geek role — slightly dumber than he found them.

More so, Kruger’s appearance apparently means Williamson is off the project completely — putting the proposed Scream 5 script he was working on in serious jeopardy.

When the writer for Zap2It berated director Wes Craven for butchering the script for Scream 4, the director responded via his Twitter account that he had not been given control over the script. A pretty serious claim in such a public forum — he even included a #SCREAM4 hash-tag!

Williamson, currently overseeing the production of his show Vampire Diaries, has remained silent during the whole to-do — or has he?

Movieline has uncovered the possible source for Zap2It’s unnamed sources close to production. On June 29, Williamson tweeted that he had just enjoyed sushi with Carina MacKenzie, the writer for Zap2It who first posted about the turmoil on the set of Scream 4. For what it’s worth, MacKenzie, via her own Twitter account, claims that her story came from multiple sources.

The Buzz: I hate to see the potential of a really good new Scream movie brought down by the same writer-related strife that hurt Scream 3. While Williamson has shown he is a writer that could use a little polish every now and then, I’m not too sure Kruger is the man to do it — especially after his wretched Transformers 2 script. While he has done some pretty decent work on scripts for Arlington Road and The Ring, let us not forget Reindeer Games — I know Ben Affleck hasn’t.

What’s especially troubling about this story is how much has been uncovered or just plain revealed over Twitter. Social networking has really changed the way movies are made and presented to the public. While before there was always a bit of mystery associated with moviemaking — a mystery sites like Inside Pulse love to chip away at — nowadays its all to easy to track a film’s conception, pregnancy and eventual birth via such sites such as Twitter, Facebook and, yes, even MySpace.

Robert Saucedo is an avid movie watcher with seriously poor sleeping habits. The Mikey from Life cereal of film fans, Robert will watch just about anything — good, bad or ugly. He has written about film for newspapers, radio and online for the last 10 years. This has taken a toll on his sanity — of that you can be sure. Follow him on Twitter at @robsaucedo2500.