Scream 2022 screenwriter, James Vanderbilt, has revealed that the latest installment in the slasher franchise wasn’t intended to set up a new trilogy. After over 25 years, fans of Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s horror series have moved into a new era. The death of Craven in 2015 at the age of 76 considerably challenged the notion that any further installments could be made, with many regular cast members concerned that without Craven, the series simply wouldn’t feel right anymore.
After much speculation and some convincing on the part of directing duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the actors who play the surviving characters from the original Scream films returned for a fifth installment. The key challenge was being true to what Craven had established with the series, while also providing some leg room for potential growth in future installments. At one point prior to Scream 2022’s release, Gillett stated that “there is more gas in the tank” with regard to expanding the franchise – an extremely encouraging sign that despite Craven no longer being here, the possibility existed to keep what he had started going. Of course, as with any film series, subsequent sequels depend on the success of the current entry, but so far, Scream 2022 is indeed satisfying fans and critics alike.
As it turns out, however, Scream 2022 wasn’t written with setting up a new trilogy in mind. During an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, Vanderbilt explained that when making the film, the idea was not to make “a two hour trailer for Scream 6”. Instead, the process was a more natural one, ensuring that fans were able to be taken back to Woodsboro, meet up with familiar cast favorites and get introduced to new characters along the way. As Vanderbilt explained:
The way we approached it, and I’ve had this experience before in my career where I worked on movies before where people go, “Oh, it would be so exciting to plan out two and three! And we’ll plant this,” and then the movie comes out, and there is no sequel because it didn’t work. So coming into this, we really looked at it as, “If we got to make one Scream film, what would we put if we only got one shot at it?” We want it to do everything we could in here and put it in here and make sure that, like Wes’ films, it’s a full meal from beginning to end. If the opportunity came along to make more, I think all of us would jump at the chance. This has just been an incredibly exciting experience and a wonderful experience. It really has been getting to make a movie with your friends, which is not almost ever the case. But we really did want this movie to stand on its own. We didn’t want to make the two-hour trailer for Scream 6. We wanted to sort of take you on the journey, take you on the ride, re-introduce you to the people you love, have you meet some new characters along the way, and really enjoy going back to Woodsboro.
It’s also worth noting that while Scream 2022 remained dedicated to celebrating Craven’s legacy, making a film that wasn’t intended to set up a sequel was very much how the first Scream was made. In that way, the new film represents a return to what has come before and that in itself is an exciting prospect for a new era of Scream. If the intention was to provide the franchise with a clean slate, then resisting the urge to set up future sequels has ironically helped to make that goal a reality.
At present, it’s still too early to talk sequels. It’s been a long path to get to this point, and along the way, one of the greatest horror filmmakers of all time was lost. The gap between 2011’s Scre4m and 2022’s Scream is considerable to say the least, so for now, as much fun as it is to consider the new, possibilities that await this franchise, it seems only fair to take in and enjoy this achievement from Bettinelli-Olpin, Gillett, and Vanderbilt.
Key Release Dates
Scream (2022)
Release Date:2022-01-14
