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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - February 4th

"SCREAM 3" released in 2000

While Sidney and her friends visit the Hollywood set of Stab 3, the third film based on the Woodsboro murders, a new Ghostface begins to terrorize them once again, in Wes Craven's Scream 3!

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Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), now living in Los Angeles and the host of a nationally syndicated television show, 100% Cotton, is called by Ghostface, who demands the whereabouts of Sidney Prescott, who has gone into hiding ever since the events of the second film three years ago. Cotton refuses to cooperate, and when Ghostface comes to his home, both Cotton and his girlfriend Christine (Kelly Rutherford) are murdered.

Detective Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey) contacts Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) to discuss the murders, prompting her to travel to Hollywood, where she finds Dewey Riley (David Arquette) working as an adviser on the set of Stab 3, the third film in the film within a film series based on the Ghostface murders. Using a voice changer as a ruse, Ghostface kills Stab 3 actress Sarah Darling (Jenny McCarthy). Meanwhile, Sidney is now living in a secluded rural house as a crisis counselor for an abused women's hotline, as she is fearful that another killer may strike. Having discovered Sidney's number, the killer begins taunting her by phone, forcing her out of hiding and drawing her to Hollywood. As the remaining Stab 3 cast, along with Dewey and Gale, gather at the home of Jennifer Jolie (Parker Posey), Ghostface kills her bodyguard Steven Stone (Patrick Warburton) and uses a gas leak to cause an explosion, killing fellow actor Tom Prinze (Matt Keeslar) in the process.

Martha Meeks (Heather Matarazzo), the sister of Sidney's friend Randy, who was attacked and murdered by Ghostface in the previous film, visits Sidney and the others to drop off a videotape that Randy had made before his death, posthumously warning them that the rules of a horror movie franchise in the third and final film do not apply to anyone, and that any of them, including Sidney, could die. As Dewey, Gale, Jennifer, and the remaining Stab 3 actors, Angelina Tyler (Emily Mortimer) and Tyson Fox (Deon Richmond), attend a birthday party for Stab 3's director Roman Bridger (Scott Foley), the stage is set for one more deadly confrontation between Sidney and the latest Ghostface; which reveals a deadly secret from Sidney's past that she would never see coming!

[Sidney, Dewey, Gale and Randy's sister, Martha, watch Randy's posthumous tape]
Dewey: [referring to the tape] Trilogy?
Randy: That's right, it's a rarity in the horror field but it does exist, and it is a force to be reckoned with. Because true trilogies are all about going back to the beginning and discovering something that wasn't true from the get go. Godfather, Jedi, all revealed something that we thought was true that wasn't true. So if it is a trilogy you are dealing with, here are some super trilogy rules: 1. You got a killer who's going to be super human. Stabbing him won't work. Shooting him won't work. Basically in the third one you gotta cryogenically freeze his head, decapitate him, or blow him up. 2. Anyone including the main character can die. This means you Syd. I'm sorry. It's the final chapter. It could be fucking 'Reservoir Dogs' by the time this thing is through. Number 3. The past will come back to bite you in the ass. Whatever you think you know about the past, forget it. The past is not at rest. Any sins you think were committed in the past are about to break out and destroy you. So in closing, let me say good luck, god speed, and for some of you, I'll see you soon. 'Cause the rules say some of you ain't gonna make it. I didn't, not if you're watching this tape.

Top:   Sidney (Neve Campbell), Dewey (David Arquette) and Gale (Courtney Cox-Arquette) are drawn into another series of grisly murders;

Above:   Detective Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey) joins the investigation

Before the release of Scream 2, Dimension Films had already greenlit a third film in the Scream-series, with a budget of over $40 million; significantly higher than the $14 million budget for the first Scream. Screenwriter Kevin Williamson's involvement had been contracted while selling his Scream script, to which he had attached two five-page outlines for potential sequels, what would become Scream 2 and Scream 3, hoping to entice buyers with the prospect of purchasing a franchise rather than a single script. Likewise, director Wes Craven too had been contracted for two potential sequels following a successful test screening of Scream and he returned to direct the third installment. 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.' The Weinsteins hired Arlington Road scribe Ehren Kruger to replace Williamson and helm writing duties, developing a script based on Williamson's  20-30 page draft outline.

To help in developing the script, Kruger read copies of Williamson's scripts for Scream and Scream 2 as well as watching the earlier films to better understand the characters and tone, but 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 had the character of Sidney Prescott much like "Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2" - a more action-orientated heroine - at which point Craven would intervene and correct the script to bring the characters closer to their previous appearances. With the start of principal photography looming, Craven himself completed some rewrites, while Kruger himself was constantly on set rewriting scenes - in some cases completed the same day they were to be filmed. Throughout production, the actors would constantly complain about the frequent rewrites, which Craven cheekily included in the final film with the actors of "Stab 3", the movie-within-the-movie, complaining about rewrites and the three different scripts.

Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette and Liev Schreiber all returned to their roles as Sidney Prescott and news reporter Gale Weathers, Dewey Riley and Cotton Weary, now host of a TV show. Scheduling however proved more difficult than previous installments in the Scream series since  their busy schedules made arranging their availability with the film's production period difficult. case in point, Campbell was concurrently shooting the movie Drowning Mona, as well as her TV series Party of Five during the production of this film, which meant she was only available to film her role for 20 days forcing the script to reduce the series' main character to a smaller role while focusing on the other characters played by Cox and Arquette (and since her Drowning Mona character had long, streaked hair, Campbell had to wear a wig to play Sidney Prescott, which required two hours application time each morning). Roger L. Jackson again returned to voice the antagonist Ghostface and Jamie Kennedy reprised his role as Randy Meeks in spite of the character's death in Scream 2. Negative feedback following the death of Randy had the production consider methods to have had his character survive to appear in Scream 3 including having the character's family hide him away for safety while recuperating from his injuries, but it was deemed too unbelievable and the idea was replaced with the character appearing in a minor role via a pre-recorded video message.

TRIVIA:   Angelina Tyler (Emily Mortimer) was supposed to be the second killer, as Roman Bridger's girlfriend and ex-classmate of Sidney from Scream, but the producers didn't like the idea.

Top and Above:   Stab 3 actress Sarah Darling (Jenny McCarthy) is stalked by Ghostface!

Many of the supporting cast played fictitious actors taking part in the film within a film Stab 3, including Emily Mortimer as Angelina Tyler, Parker Posey as Jennifer Jolie, Matt Keeslar as Tom Prinze, Jenny McCarthy as Sarah Darling and Deon Richmond as Tyson Fox with Scott Foley as the film's director, Roman Bridger. Interestingly, it was only after English actress Mortimer had been cast that the production discovered that she didn't have a permit to work in the States, in which Mortimer was flown to Canada where she was able to obtain the correct permit just as production got underway. The remaining cast included Lance Henriksen as film producer John Milton, Patrick Dempsey as detective Mark Kincaid (Dempsey being hired the day before shooting began and had one night to learn three big dialog-heavy scenes!), Patrick Warburton as bodyguard Steven Stone, and Kelly Rutherford as Christine Hamilton, girlfriend to Cotton Weary. Scream 3 also featured several cameo appearances including the fictional characters of Jay and Silent Bob from the 1994 film Clerks played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, and director Roger Corman as an on-set studio executive. Carrie Fisher made a cameo in the film as former actress, Bianca Burnette, at the suggestion of Bob Weinstein, with Fisher helping to write her character.

Principal photography for Scream 3 began on July 6, 1999 in and around Hollywood, Los Angeles. The opening scene involves Cotton Weary (Schreiber) driving before arriving home where he is murdered by the Ghostface character, was originally filmed on Holloywood Boulevard, but the following scene in Cotton's apartment was changed frequently, requiring alterations to the driving scene to maintain continuity, modifying who speaks to Cotton by phone and what the conversation entailed. Unable to return to Hollywood Boulevard, the scene was reshot on a street outside of the production studio in San Fernando Valley and intermixed with footage taken on the Boulevard. Likewise, the opening attack scene was filmed partially at the exterior and interior of Harper House in West Hollywood but changes were made to the scene including introducing a live girlfriend for Cotton instead of her being dead when Cotton arrives. It was later decided that the confrontation between Cotton and Ghostface, featuring Cotton physically dominating the character and attempting to escape by skylight, was unrealistic and made Ghostface appear weak and this scene was reshot. Again however, they were unable to return to Harper House to conduct filming and resorted to constructing a replica of the apartment interior to produce the necessary footage which had the Ghostface character appear more dominant and completely excised the attempted skylight escape.

Since scenes were being constantly rewritten on set - to avoid the complications resulting from shooting the opening scene - Craven the production team purposely filmed large amounts of footage containing different variations of each scene based on the different script developments in order that, should the script further change, they would ideally have a scene they could use without having to film new ones at a later date, requiring them to obtain access to locations or build sets. In fact, the three-minute scene featuring the character of Randy Meeks had over two-hours of footage filmed, and three versions of the epilogue scene were filmed with Patrick Dempsey's character - one with him absent, one where his arm is bandaged and one with him in a normal condition - as the production were not certain if his character should survive or be killed off!

TRIVIA:   When Sidney jumped over the bar and stabbed the killer in the back with an icepick, Neve Campbell missed the pad that she was supposed to plunge the pick into and actually hit flesh. Scott Foley's scream is genuine.

Top:   Director Wes Craven on location with David Arquette and Courtney Cox-Arquette, and with Neve Campbell at the Scream 3 premiere (Above)

Three months after completing principal photography for Scream 3, the ending was refilmed when it was decided to be an inadequate conclusion - originally the ending consisted of Sidney easily defeating Roman which led into an early morning scene of police arriving and then into the final scene of Sidney in her home. The production considered that this amounted to essentially three endings, damaging the pacing of the film and there was also consideration that, being the concluding chapter of the trilogy, the audience needed to believe that Sidney could lose and die, something her easy victory did not achieve. To create the alternate ending, the fight scene between Sidney and Roman was extended and an addition involved Roman shooting Sidney, seemingly to death where previously she had simply hidden from the character. As with production of Scream, Craven encountered repeated conflicts over censorship with the MPAA regarding violence, with the director stating in an interview that the issues made him consider leaving the horror genre.

Released in February, Scream 3 was the least financially successful film of the series (at the time), grossing a little under $90 million at the US box office, and received the worst reviews of the franchise. Time Out London was particularly critical of the film, calling the film's metafiction commentary a poor imitation of Craven's own horror film Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). Roger Ebert said "[the characters] are so thin, they're transparent" but praised Campbell's appearance saying, "The camera loves her. She could become a really big star and then giggle at clips from this film at her AFI tribute." In a positive review, The Los Angeles Times called the film, "Genuinely scary and also highly amusing", while Variety also praised the film as the end of the Scream trilogy, saying "Aficionados will be the best able to appreciate how wittily Craven has brought down the curtain on his much-imitated, genre-reviving series".

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   31%

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