In a recent interview, Scream creator Kevin Williamson revealed why the latest installment in the franchise is simply titled Scream, as opposed to Scream 5.
Williamson sat down with Us Weekly to discuss the upcoming release and spoke about the decision to cut the number 5 from the slasher movie's title. "Well, it was always Scream 5 because it's the fifth one. So I think we just threw that name out, but I don't think they ever seriously were going to call it a Scream 5. I don't think anybody wanted to see the number five after something. You'd have to ask them—Paramount or whoever, but I think taking the 5 off and calling it Scream [works] because it’s brand new," explained Williamson.
Some fans are skeptical of the title change, believing it suggests the series has been rebooted, which is not the case. The upcoming 2022 release will be set in the same universe as the previous titles in the series, with several characters from the original movie returning, including Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courteney Cox, who are all set to reprise their roles. Williamson touched on this in the interview, stating, "There's the legacy cast, and how they infuse this new world and there's this whole new generation and a new cast of characters that are extremely fun."
Williamson also spoke about his memories of casting Campbell as the lead, and how he was immediately impressed by her first screen test, stating, "she was so wonderful. In her screen test, she basically did the phone call when she's talking to the killer in the very beginning, when she goes out on the front porch and she’s like, 'Are you out there?' She did that whole sequence in the screen test and it was so wonderful as you noticed the performance she gave in the movie."
Williamson went on to discuss how his script initially saw the death of one of the franchise's most iconic characters: Dewey Riley, played by Arquette. According to Williamson, Arquette (quite literally) flipped the script midway through production, with the quality and commitment of his performance. "In the movie, he originally died," he said. "We filmed it that way. But what happened during the course of the movie is we realized how his performance was just so witty. Also, we loved him. He played it with such heart, such commitment and everyone kept thinking that. About halfway through it, they were asking me about a sequel because I had already written the outline. They were like, 'What about the sequel? Why isn't Dewey in the sequel?' And so, just in case, we filmed that last sequence, of him getting in the ambulance."
Scream is scheduled to be released in theatres on Jan. 14, 2022.
Source: Us Weekly