What Scream’s Creator Kevin Williamson Thought Of The Divisive Third Movie

Here’s what franchise creator Kevin Williamson thought of Scream 3, the most divisive entry in the series. The horror genre had been flailing during the first half of the 1990s, with even major releases like The Silence Of The Lambs – despite clearly being a horror movie – trying to avoid the label. It was the success of Wes Craven’s Scream that really gave the genre the boost it needed. Craven’s taut direction combined with the witty, inventive screenplay by Kevin Williamson brought a meta element to the slasher formula.

Audiences and critics loved Scream, and a sequel arrived the next year. Williamson also penned Scream 2 – which has hidden clues to the killer’s identity – with the followup itself offering a meta deconstruction of sequels while containing some of the best setpieces of the franchise. During this period in the late ’90s, Williamson became especially busy, working on projects like The Faculty, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Dawson’s Creek back to back. The success of Scream 2 made it clear another entry would happen, but Williamson was too busy to devote much time to it.

In lieu of penning a full Scream 3 script, Williamson wrote a detailed treatment that saw Ghostface return to Woodsboro. Several elements caused this treatment to be thrown out, including concerns over movie violence following the Columbine High School massacre. Ultimately, Scream 3 – which has links to Halloween: H20 – took the main characters to Hollywood, and put more focus on the comedic elements while digging into the past of Sidney’s mother Maureen. Williamson had little to no involvement with the final version of Scream 3, and in a 2022 Bloody Disgusting conversion, revealed it took him nearly a decade to watch it.

According to the Scream creator, this was largely due to the fact it was developed during a “disastrous time” between him and the studio. Naturally, this somewhat colored his first time watching Scream 3, which Williamson felt he had to do before penning Scream 4. Overall, he was mixed on Scream 3, stating “From a writing standpoint I could tell it was from a different hand,” and that he “Didn’t find it scary” and thought “…it was a little more kitschy and campy.” That’s not to say he couldn’t enjoy the divisive sequel, stating he enjoyed Parker Posey’s character and that it had some great moments to it.

Another element about Scream 3 – which nearly had two killers – that did irritate Williamson is that he felt the story was messy in terms of logic, and that he and Craven acted as “logic police” while developing the first two. This was to make sure the plot was “airtight” in terms of how and when events happened, which the writer felt wasn’t the case with the third entry. While many feel Scream 3 is the worst sequel, it definitely has its moments and its plot became eerily prescient of sexual misconduct in Hollywood, especially involving producer Harvey Weinstein.

About The Author

Padraig Cotter
(3486 Articles Published)

See also  Tom Holland Was Hit By A Car 17 Times for Uncharted Movie Stunt

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

More From Padraig Cotter