As the first film in the Scream franchise not directed by Wes Craven, 2022's Scream had a tremendous amount of pressure on it to succeed. While some fans were skeptical about the return to Woodsboro, Scream delighted fans both critically and commercially. To date, the Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett-directed film has earned more than $137 million worldwide in theaters. Not too long after it slayed at the box office, Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group greenlit a sixth Scream film from the Radio Silence team.
In anticipation of Scream's arrival to Digital platforms, CBR sat down for an exclusive (and spoiler-free) interview with directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The Ready or Not directors teased more hand gouges in Scream and discussed how this specific injury adds an additional layer of thematic tension to films. We also discussed the enduring legacy of Maureen and Sidney Prescott and looked towards what's next for the franchise's future.
CBR: First, congrats on Scream 6 being greenlit! That's fantastic.
Tyler Gillett & Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Thank you.
Do you remember your first thought when you heard that news?
Gillett: To be perfectly honest, we were hearing rumblings of it. And then when it was officially announced -- you can't take it back. There are no takebacks once it hits the trades, Cass! [laughs] They're stuck with us now.
Well, I'm happy about that. Scream, in general, has always been about breaking horror rules, redefining them, and breaking them again. So I was curious for 2022's Scream, was there one expectation that you were really excited to just mess around with and break?
Gillett: For us, the thing that we were most excited about was [the script]. When we first read the script, we were having the experience that the audience has watching Scream for the first time, just going, "What's the design of this? Where is it going?..."
Getting to the end -- and without spoiling anything -- the context reframe that happens at the end of the movie, I think, for us, was what was so fun. To then go back and go, "Wow, the entire movie, the way that the movie is designed, and the scenes within the movie, the way that those are designed, there is some grand idea behind all of it." There was something so cool about being fans of these movies and wanting to design something really unique, but then also having characters within the movie wanting to do the same thing was so awesome for us. It felt like it was one of a million layers of meta-analysis and of self-reflexivity that we kept finding as we're peeling back, moment to moment, the story of the movie. It was just such a well-thought-out and wonderfully formed script. We were so thrilled with what Guy [Busick] and Jamie [Vanderbilt] achieved with this one.
One of my favorite things about Scream's trailer was we saw a small glimpse of Sid as a mom... I was so excited to see Sid as a mom and this iteration of her life. When you were forming how that would look on-screen with Neve Campbell, what were some ground rules that you had on how to show that side of her?
Bettinelli-Olpin: We wanted to make it clear from the get-go when you saw Sid that she's moved on. She's accepted it. She's living her life. She's happy. That's why it's by the water and just an idyllic setting. It just feels like, "Oh, she's good." I think that was really important for us -- and it comes from the script, obviously -- but, the idea that Sid has moved on but Ghostface has not. And then that becomes the fun thing that she has to deal with in this.
You mentioned in prior interviews that some chase/kill scenes changed once you were on set -- which happens! -- so I would love to know, how do you know when a kill scene is working? And what are some signs for you when even though you really want it to work, you know you have to scrap it and do something completely different?
Gillett: Well, when you have a good line producer and a good producer, they signal right away if you don't have enough time or money to do what you want to do [laughs], which is a very valuable relationship to have. I think for us too, though, there's just a feeling of excitement. I think a lot of that is just intuition. So much of what that intuition is for us is is because of our love of these movies. I think that we know when we're shooting a sequence, whether it feels like Scream or not.
I think the other sort of part of that is they're really fun. I think for us, we talk often about how when you're a scare or real specific horror moment, that oftentimes for us, we know it's working when it actually feels really funny. There's something in it that almost feels like you're shooting a comedy. A lot of that is just about finding ways to create so much tension and to keep tightening the screws that you're sort of laughing and waiting for that big reveal to happen. When you're shooting sequences like that, you're just trying to create some approximation of that and you really feel it when it's working. It's really oftentimes those takes with everybody laughing and that's a really good sign for us that people are having fun in the making of it. That's a really, really good roadmap to follow.
So in Scream, and in Ready Or Not, there's a lot of hand gouging! What's up with that?
Gillett: The Radio Silence signature hand-wound [laughs].
[laugh] But honestly, what is about that kind of scare that attracts you to it?
Bettinelli-Olpin: What's funny is one of the writers is the same on Scream and Ready Or Not, and one of the writers on Scream was the producer on Ready Or Not -- so it feels like maybe this is a question for a lot of us. [laughs] We're used to working on lower budget movies like Ready Or Not and I think there's something specific about hand wounds that are so personal, and so scary, and so understandable. Relatable is not quite the right word --
Tactile?
Bettinelli-Olpin: Yeah! I think especially when you're working on a lower budget thing, it's very achievable. And it can give you that thing --
Gillett: -- that cringe!
Bettinelli-Olpin: Yeah, like our character is going through something awful right now.
The funny thing about the Ready Or Not Night one is I think the hardest part -- for the character, and for us as an audience -- is not when it goes into her hand. It's when she takes it out. It's that moment that, at least for me, is always like, "Oh, Jesus." But yeah, we have a joke that we now have the hand gouging and a ghost nod at the end of all our movies.
Gillett: I think what you're saying too Cass, and what we think is so interesting, is that when something like that happens to your hand -- which obviously we interact so much with in the world with our hands -- that every single thing after an injury like that is an obstacle. Even the easiest thing is now 100 times harder because you're injured in a way that's really significant. For us, the more you can stack obstacles on top of a character, the better that just makes for a really thrilling, fun, intense story.
The Scream franchise is all about Maureen's life and death for the most part, and also, obviously, Sid. Do you feel satisfied with how the franchise overall has treated Maureen's story? Do you have any hopes of having her have a bigger role in other films?
Bettinelli-Olpin: It's interesting. We talk about that a lot. It's like every story has to have a backstory, right? There has to be a stopgap for how far back does the story we need to tell go.
But, and I'm speaking more as a fan and not as someone who made a Scream movie, I've always thought the Maureen storyline is so interesting because the character points of view on it are so awful. They're horrible. There's something in that that makes everything that happens, as a result, all the more tragic, and all the more interesting. I hate to make it sound "good" --
Gillett: Rich?
Bettinelli-Olpin: Yeah! Rich and complicated. She had an affair. That's what she did. It's not like she deserves to be murdered.
Gillett: No one should pay that price!
Bettinelli-Olpin: To have that kind of thing just turn into this monster after monster is so fascinating. And I think, especially because of the way we live now with the internet and stuff, that idea of a small thing becoming something awful is really prevalent. That doesn't really answer your question, but we'd love to talk about Maureen. It's very interesting.
Yeah. I think it's like what you're saying where we only ever see Maureen through the eyes of other characters but she's barely on the screen. She's only technically ever on the screen once as a ghost in Scream 3. I always love asking about her to fans -- and now to directors of the franchise -- how you see her.
Gillett: Well, there's also something really interesting to us. I think part of it is we've made a movie that's very much about legacy, but it's sort of interesting to frame the whole franchise as a movie that starts with the idea of a legacy that Sidney inherits.
Sidney inherits this thing from her mom, right or wrong. She is paying the price for something that's happened in the past and that for us is just always a really interesting idea. When a character living in the moment is having to kind of reconcile themselves with something that's happened in their past or with somebody that they have an attachment to in their past. And, for us, certainly, Sam Carpenter is a proxy for that idea in so many ways, and her connection to Billy. All that for us is just such an interesting world to explore.
Follow Ghostface's latest killing spree in 2022's Scream, now available on Digital and arriving on Paramount+ on March 8. Diehard Scream fans can get their bloody hands on the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray version of the film on April 5.