Movies
Wes Craven on the Future Of ‘Scream’
It’s not news that Kevin Williamson had written Scream 4 as the beginning of a new trilogy, with plans already sketched out for the next two films. But after seeing the latest entry, I’m left scratching my head as to where they could go with it. I really hope this new cycle doesn’t burn itself out as quickly as the last one; there was nothing left to poke fun at by the time Scream 3 rolled around.
Wes Craven recently sat down and revealed some non-news about the continuation of the franchise – if it’s even fast-tracked given the poor reception of Scream 4 – which you can find past the break due to spoilers.
Given the secretive nature of Scream 4‘s storyline, don’t expect anyone to give away any huge plot points this time around either – also, it hasn’t been confirmed that it’s completely written yet either, so presumably no one even knows at this point. Craven tossed this nugget of info out there during a recent junket, which everyone who saw the latest entry will respond to with a resounding, “Well… duh.”
“I imagine the core characters will continue. I suspect they’ll be with us until the end, because they just are the heart and soul of the movie and especially since we tend to kill off most of the other people. They’ll be with us. There will be some continuation of the drama of Sidney Prescott’s family and the ghosts that haunt it.”
Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.
First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.
Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.
Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.
Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.
“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”
She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”
At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.
Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.
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