Wes Craven’s original Scream movie put a fresh spin on the slasher genre by setting up the identity of its “Ghostface” killer as a mystery. The rest of the films in the franchise followed in that tradition by featuring surprising twists in the identity of each new killer who dons the Ghostface mask. William Sherak, who is producing the upcoming Scream 5, revealed to CinemaBlend that even the cast and crew of the new movie don’t know who the next Ghostface killer is yet.
“I think the two things to remember for us. One is there are multiple versions of the draft out there and most of the cast don’t know if they have the right version or not. So we’ve been playing that game with them as well. And the fun of a Scream movie is that everyone is guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around. So the goal is to keep that going for as long as possible and have fun with it.”
Scripts being kept under lock and key is not a new phenomenon, but the practice has become increasingly more urgent in the new age of internet spoilers. Avengers: Endgame famously had several fake scripts distributed among the cast to keep the ending of the film a secret. It seems Scream 5 is taking the same route in order to protect the identity of the new Ghostface killer.
When Scream first debuted in 1996, the horror movie genre was in a very different place from where it is now. The film, with the mystery of the killer at its center, and the meta-textual nature of the narrative, was a breath of fresh air for slasher movie fans. After three sequels and a TV show, the Scream franchise is no longer the new kid on the block.
The challenge will be for Scream 5 to reinvent its own formula in a manner that is relevant to modern audiences. In a previous interview with Collider, one of Scream 5‘s co-directors, Tyler Gillett, explained why they took on the intimidating task of following in Wes Craven’s footsteps.
“Why we’re all here and why we all feel confidently about what we’re making, it goes to Jamie [Vanderbilt] and Guy [Busick], the writers, who are not only wildly talented on the page, but they’re just absolute mega-fans, as we are, of Wes’ work and of the Scream franchise. It’s a tightrope to walk, right? To be respectful and find ways to tie a new story into an old lineage. All I can say is that we would have had a tremendous amount of anxiety stepping into this franchise because Wes, the level of respect we have for his work, it’s really impossible to fully express what that is. But when we read the story that Guy and Jamie put on the page, there was something so undeniably new and also something so undeniably Scream about it, and we just knew that we had to be a part of it and that it was walking the tightrope in precisely the right way.”
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Scream features Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Jack Quaid, Marley Shelton, Dylan Minnette, Mason Gooding, Mikey Madison, Melissa Barrera, and Jenna Ortega. The film arrives in theaters on January 14, 2022. This news comes from CinemaBlend with additional reporting from Collider.