I am most definitely not a hardcore spoiler-phobe. You can’t be in this job, as you get exposed to details about productions all the time. But learning casting or script details ahead of time is very different to having major plot twists or revelations thrown at you before you can see a film. Unfortunately, there is a portion of the internet that revels in spoiling things for others, not to mention that the spoiler industry has also become lucrative business, prompting scoopers to dig even deeper to find out film secrets. As such, filmmakers often employ tactics like only letting cast members see their own portions of scripts or even circulating fake scripts as red herrings. For the upcoming fifth Scream film though, the filmmakers are taking things one step further.
The upcoming Scream (not to be confused with the original film from 1996 also just titled Scream, and I still can’t believe they didn’t just call this one 5cream) is being billed as a soft relaunch of the slasher franchise and is the first without the involvement of creator/horror legend Wes Craven. Original stars Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette are reprising their respective roles as Sydney Prescott, Dewey Riler, and Gale Weathers, while Scream 4’s Marley Shelton is also back as Judy Hicks.
They will be joined by a new cast being led by Melissa Barrera as a “a young woman who returns to her old hometown, only to encounter horrific murder cases connected to a notorious masked serial killer”. The rest of the cast includes Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Dylan Minnette, Mikey Madison, Sonia Ben Ammar and Kyle Gallner. Just who they are, what all of them are doing together, and why one of them would resurrect the masked “Ghostface” serial killer persona again is unknown at this point.
What we do know is that was one of the few Hollywood productions that shot during the pandemic in late 2020. Using COVID-19 protocols allowed co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (V/H/S, Ready or Not) keep the production isolated which helped with secrecy, on top of the filmmakers circulating multiple versions of screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick’s script, as it wrapped up filming for a delayed January 2022 release date.
However, as reported by BloodyDisgusting, this extra time also allowed Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillet extra leeway to not only shoot the scenes from those various script versions, but even edit them like a proper productions. Yes, this means that there are multiple, fully completed versions of Scream out there right now, all just to throw spoiler-hounds off the scent. This may seem extreme, but there’s actually evidence of its necessity in the franchise’s history. Scream 2’s killer reveal famously leaked online early, prompting last minute rewrites to completely change the ending. The filmmakers are completely getting rid of that possibility here with these various versions.
Of course only one of these will actually be released into cinemas, but wouldn’t it be cool if the filmmakers pulled a Clue on us? For the youngsters, Clue is an 1985 feature film adaptation of the murder mystery board game of the same name. What made it unique is that it had three endings with each revealing a different character to be the murderer. Different cinemas would get different versions, so if you wanted to know all three, you would have to see the film thrice in different locations. At the very least, Scream could include all the different versions on the Blu-ray home release as a cool treat for fans. For a franchise as wink-wink self-referential as this, a nod back to a classic murder mystery film would be right in line.
Last Updated: April 16, 2021
