Scream 3 is a 2000 American slasher film directed by Wes Craven and written by Ehren Kruger. It stars David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox Arquette, Parker Posey, Patrick Dempsey, Scott Foley, Lance Henriksen, Matt Keeslar, Jenny McCarthy, Emily Mortimer, Deon Richmond, and Patrick Warburton. It is a sequel to Scream 2 (1997) and the third installment in the Scream film series. The film's story follows Sidney Prescott (Campbell), who has gone into self-imposed isolation following the events of the previous two films but is drawn to Hollywood after a new Ghostface begins killing the cast of the film within a film Stab 3. Scream 3 combines the violence of the slasher genre with comedy and "whodunit" mystery, while satirizing the cliché of film trilogies. Unlike the previous Scream films, there was an increased emphasis on comedic elements in this installment; the violence and horror were reduced in response to increased public scrutiny about violence in media, following the Columbine High School massacre.
Scream (1996) screenwriter Kevin Williamson provided a five-page outline for two sequels to Scream when auctioning his original script, hoping to entice bidders with the potential of buying a franchise. Williamson's commitments to other projects meant he was unable to develop a complete script for Scream 3, so writing duties were undertaken by Kruger, who discarded many of Williamson's notes. Craven and Marco Beltrami returned to direct and score the film, respectively. Production was troubled, including script rewrites, occasions when pages were only ready on the day of filming, and scheduling difficulties with the main cast. Principal photography took place from July to September 1999, and the ending was re-filmed in January 2000.
Scream 3 premiered on February 3, 2000, in Westwood, Los Angeles, and was theatrically released by Dimension Films the following day, grossing $162million worldwide on a budget of $40million. The film received mixed reviews but has been reappraised in recent years in the wake of the MeToo movement. Scream 3 was originally intended to be the final installment of the series until the franchise was revived with a sequel, Scream 4, released on April 15, 2011.
Plot
Cotton Weary, now a successful talk show host, is contacted by Ghostface, who demands to know the whereabouts of Sidney Prescott. When Cotton refuses to cooperate, Ghostface murders him and his girlfriend Christine. Detective Mark Kincaid contacts Gale Weathers to discuss Cotton's murder, prompting her to travel to Hollywood. She finds Dewey Riley working as an adviser on the set of Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro, the third film in the series based on the Ghostface murders where he is now dating Jennifer Jolie who plays Gale in Stab 3.
Ghostface kills Stab 3 actress Sarah Darling, halting the film's production to the frustration of director Roman Bridger. The remaining cast, along with Dewey and Gale, gather at Jennifer's home, where Ghostface stabs Jennifer's bodyguard to death and causes a gas explosion, killing co-star Tom Prinze, who plays Dewey.
Elsewhere, Sidney is living in seclusion under an alias, fearing another killer may strike, and works as a crisis counselor for an abused women's hotline. Having uncovered her location, the killer begins taunting Sidney using a voice changer to sound like her deceased mother Maureen Prescott. Sidney travels to Hollywood, realizing she is no longer safe. Gale and Jennifer learn that Maureen briefly worked as an actress in the 1970s under the stage name "Rina Reynolds" and had been raped at a party held by Stab 3 producer John Milton.
Martha Meeks, the sister of Sidney's murdered friend Randy, visits Sidney and the others to deliver a videotape that Randy made before his death. Randy posthumously warns them the rules of a horror film do not apply in the third film of a trilogy and that any of them could die. Sidney is later attacked by Ghostface on the Stab 3 set, forcing the police to hold her for protection.
Dewey, Gale, Jennifer, and the remaining cast, Angelina Tyler, who plays Sidney Prescott, and Tyson Fox who plays Rickey, attend a birthday party for Roman at Milton's mansion. While exploring the house, Gale and Jennifer find Roman apparently dead. Ghostface then attacks the group, killing Angelina, Tyson, and Jennifer while taking Gale and Dewey hostage. Ghostface contacts Sidney, and she travels to the mansion. Kincaid follows but is knocked unconscious by Ghostface. Sidney is lured to a secret screening room where Ghostface appears and reveals himself to be Roman, having faked his death.
Roman explains that he is Sidney's half-brother and the product of Maureen's sexual assault. Four years prior, he tracked Maureen down, only for her to reject him. Roman began stalking her and filming the men she philandered with. He showed Billy Loomis footage of his father with Maureen, setting off the string of murders in Woodsboro. When he discovered the fame Sidney attracted due to those events, Roman snapped and lured her out of hiding, planning to kill her and frame her for his murders. After Roman reveals a bound Milton and slits his throat, Sidney furiously denounces his explanation as nothing more than deflection to hide his selfish motivations. Roman suffers a mental breakdown and attacks, and after a ferocious fight, Sidney ultimately outsmarts Roman and repeatedly stabs him. As Dewey and Gale arrive, Roman rises and tries to attack them once more but is finally killed when Dewey shoots him in the head.
Later at Sidney's house, Dewey proposes to Gale, who accepts. Sidney returns from a walk and leaves her previously alarmed front gates open. As she joins Gale, Dewey and Kincaid to watch a movie, a wind blows her front door open, but she ignores it.
Cast
Production Development Scream 3 was released over two years after Scream 2, with a budget of $40million, a significant increase over the budgets of Scream at $15million and Scream 2 at $24million. Williamson's involvement had been contracted while selling his Scream script, to which he had attached two five-page outlines for potential sequels, which would become Scream 2 and Scream 3, hoping to entice buyers with the prospect of purchasing a franchise rather than a single script. Craven too had been contracted for two potential sequels following a successful test screening of Scream and he returned to direct the third installment. Shortly before production began on the film, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students, a teacher, and themselves at their school, in what became known as the Columbine High School massacre. In the aftermath of the incident, many parties began looking for rationales for their actions and this led to an increased scrutiny on the role of the media in society, including video games and film, and the influence it could have on an audience. With the production of Scream 3 not yet underway, there were considerations about whether the film should be made at that time, aware of the potential for negative attention but the studio decided to press forward, albeit with changes. The studio remained much more apprehensive concerning violence and gore in Scream 3 than with previous installments, pressing for a greater emphasis on the series' satiric humor while scaling back on the violence. At one point in the production, the studio went as far as demanding that the film feature no blood or on-screen violence at all, a drastic departure for the series, but Craven directly intervened. According to Kruger, "[Craven ...] said 'Be serious, guys. Either we make a Scream movie or we make a movie and call it something else. But if it's a Scream movie, it's going to have certain standards.'"
Writing Bob and Harvey Weinstein approached Williamson in early 1999 to pursue a full script for a third installment to the Scream franchise, Scream 3. However, following his successes with the Scream series and other projects such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Williamson had become involved in multiple projects including the development of the short-lived TV series Wasteland and directing his self-penned film Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999) which Williamson had written prior to Scream and which had languished in development hell since. Unable to develop a full script for the production, Williamson instead wrote a 20–30 page draft outline for the film that involved the return of Ghostface to the fictional town of Woodsboro where the "Stab" series, a fictional series of films within a film that exist within the Scream universe and are based on the events of Scream, would be filmed. The Weinsteins hired Arlington Road scribe Ehren Kruger to replace Williamson and helm writing duties, developing a script based on Williamson's notes.
The environment for Scream 3s development had become more complicated than with previous films. There was increased scrutiny on the effects of violence in media and the effect it could have on the public in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre which occurred shortly before production would begin on the film. In addition, since the release of the original Scream films, various acts of violence had taken place which had gained notoriety and media attention when they were linked to, or blamed on, the films. Eager to avoid further criticism or connection to such incidents, Williamson's notes were largely discarded as the studio insisted that the script should focus on the comedic elements of the series while significantly reducing the violence. The setting of the film was changed from Woodsboro to Hollywood upon which Kruger commented that he believed the characters should be moving to "bigger" places from high school, to college, to the city of Hollywood. Behind the scenes however, the move away from Woodsboro was mandated as it was considered that a film containing violent acts of murder in and around the small town of Woodsboro and the associated school would attract significant negative criticism and attention that could be detrimental to the production and studio, with the film set for release less than a year following the Columbine incident.
Kruger agreed to develop the script for Scream 3 primarily to work with Craven and the executives under Miramax; he said of his decision to take on writing duties on the film:
To help in developing the script, Kruger read copies of Williamson's scripts for Scream and Scream 2, as well as watched the earlier films to better understand the characters and tone. In an interview, Kruger admitted that his lack of involvement with the development of the principal cast of Scream hampered his ability to portray them true to their previous characterization. Early scripts for Scream 3 had the character of Sidney Prescott much like "Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day" – a more action-orientated heroine – at which point Craven would intervene and correct the script to bring the characters closer to their previous appearances. Kruger admitted that despite not receiving any writing credit, Craven had a significant hand in developing the script for Scream 3. Like Scream 2, the script for Scream 3 was subject to repeated alterations with pages sometimes completed only on the day on which they were to be filmed. Multiple scenes were rewritten to include previously absent characters or change elements of the plot when it was decided that they were not connecting with other scenes. In a 2013 interview, Williamson further detailed his original script, which would have seen the killers be a "Stab" fan club of Woodsboro kids. All the members of the club would have been involved in the killings and the final twist "of the movie was when Sidney walked into the house after Ghostface had killed everyone ... and they all rose up. None of them were actually dead and they'd planned the whole thing." Williamson later adapted this story for his 2013 TV series The Following.
Casting