We wanted to work with those guys again, even if we didn’t exactly know what that next project would be. Villella: We were very excited after the release of Ready Or Not and looking for another project to make with the same team at Project X. But how was this project brought to your attention? Was a Scream sequel in the works and the studio reached out to see if you’d be interested in directing? The scares and laughs synonymous with the Scream franchise, then, seem like a natural fit. You mentioned looking forward to potentially staying within the horror genre for your next feature, but that it had to be fun and couldn’t be too dire. In our conversation (which took place a week before their Scream was set to open in theaters nationwide), the filmmaking team discussed how they were hired for the project, honoring and subverting viewers’ expectations, following safety protocols during a pandemic and more.įilmmaker: We last spoke the morning after your first feature, Ready Or Not, made its world premiere in 2019. It’s with this precaution that I catch up with Radio Silence below. As with each of these films, attempting to guess who the killer is as the story progresses is a much valued part of the viewing experience and, as a result, the leaking of spoilers is of utmost concern. Welcoming a new, young cast alongside series mainstays David Arquette, Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, this latest edition is deeply indebted to the original while finding new ways to expand upon what connects each of the traumatized characters to the fictional town of Woodsboro. Directed by Radio Silence-the filmmaking trio made up of directors Tyler Gillett & Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and executive producer Chad Villella- Scream (2022) is one such sequel, serving as both franchise continuation and reboot. “There are a lot of sequel-izable assets,” Spyglass co-founder Gary Barber said to Variety at the time. And, following the countless sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein that unfurled in 2017, Dimension Films and its parent company, The Weinstein Company, shuttered and sold off its assets for $289 million to an equity firm (Lantern Capital Partners) that would, in turn, begin collaborating with a revamped and production-focused Spyglass Media Group on new features. After the passing of the director in August of 2015, however, the Scream franchise was assumed to be over (a MTV television series ran for three seasons but was poorly received and not considered canon). Three profitable sequels followed, all directed by Craven and all but one scripted by Williamson. Directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, the first Scream opened the floodgates to a flurry of slasher films that borrowed from the original’s formula: an opening murder that establishes the masked murderer, a slew of current Hollywood teen heartthrobs (any of whom could secretly be the killer), getting more and more creative as each character is picked off one-by-one, being self-referential with nods to zeitgeisty movie trends and pop fandom, and, finally, have the killer reveal themselves in the third act with an extended monologue that reveals their modus operandi (the backstory must always be shockingly elaborate) before they too expire, often as a result of a gunshot fired in self-defense by our heroic Final Girl. Slasher films have often merged fear and excitement, creating a playful call-and-response dialogue between characters onscreen and the viewers watching them, and the Scream films play into and comment on that. Reeling in a character with a false sense of comfort before swiftly posing a question everyone in the audience would affirmatively respond to (“do you like scary movies?”), the soon-to-be-victim begins to realize what we already know: if they can’t answer three specific slasher-film trivia questions, they’ll be six feet under before next month’s phone bill arrives. As the production company’s logo appears on screen, we begin hearing the ringing of a landline phone-if you’ve seen only one of Scream’s now five installments, you immediately know whose voice will be on the other line. There may be no horror franchise that opens with as simple and satisfying a tradition as Scream.
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