"Scream" Saga Won't Be Silenced

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"Scream" Saga Won't Be Silenced

Mon., Mar. 1, 1999 9:10 AM PST by Joal Ryan

Conventional wisdom says the teens-in-peril genre is dead. The keepers of the Scream franchise are betting that conventional wisdom is wrong.

Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette--survivors of the first two flicks (Scream and Scream 2)--are all expected to be on board for, yes, Scream 3, today's Hollywood trade papers report.

Production should whip into action in May. A December release is tentatively planned.

The new story will track the post-collegiate life of Campbell's oft-terrorized Sidney Prescott, who, in an apparent bid to work out her angst, moves to Hollywood to pursue acting.

Arquette's dim-witted Deputy Dewey and Cox's ambitious TV reporter Gale Weathers also will figure into the mix.

Kevin Williamson, the Dawson's Creek auteur who penned the first two irony-rich Screams, is reupping for the third, as is director Wes Craven.

The original Scream, released in 1996, grossed more than $100 million en route to breathing new life into the teen horror flick--and spawning seemingly a dozen I Still Know What the Faculty Did Last Summer to Warrant Such Disturbing Behavior imitations.

The second Scream also topped the $100 million mark.

But so out of gas did the genre seem that Miramax's Dimension Films unit (which also releases the Scream films) recently gave the go-ahead to an Airplane!-esque parody: Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween.