Trivia / Scream 3

• Actor-Inspired Element: Carrie Fisher, a gifted screenwriter herself, rewrote some of her own lines for her cameo.
• Distanced from Current Events: The film was completely rewritten after Columbine, going from a film about an imprisoned Stu Macher controlling a group of obsessive Stab fans who start killing in imitation of their screen idols (Billy and himself) to a Horrible Hollywood story.
• Executive Meddling:
  • Stu Macher was going to return as the main villain, revealing that he survived his injuries from the first film.
  • The film's violence and gore was toned down at the request of the studio, in light of the Columbine massacre. As such, the film is a bit more satirical and comedic than the first two.
  • Sidney's Disney Death at the end was included after production had wrapped. In the original scene, she simply hid from the killer. Producers felt it wasn't a fitting enough climax for a trilogy.
  • Kincaid was included in the climax at the producers' insistence, after they realised he disappeared before the third act and his arc went nowhere otherwise. An extended ending shot the morning after also brought back Wallace, but because it amounted to three endings, it was cut, to have an ending and an epilogue moment at Sidney's house.
  • Listening to the audio commentary, one has to wonder how much of Ehren Kruger's script actually made it on screen, since Wes and the producers take credit for the majority of the changes that made it to the final cut.
  • Almost the entire film was produced with the idea of Angelina as the second killer, until the studio rejected it due to the revelation including an incest subplot (as she would be portraying Sidney, but also be Roman's girlfriend). Despite the change to Roman being a sole killer, there is still physical evidence, from the laws of gravity, that Roman has an accomplice (two killers target Sidney almost simultaneously within seconds when she is attacked on the Stab 3 set version of her home).
• Fake American: British Emily Mortimer as Angelina.
• On-Set Injury: Scott Foley took an injury in the climax when Neve Campbell struck him in the back with an ice pick, missing the pads on his back. That scream of pain is real.
• Real-Life Relative: The student who calls out Gale at a college guest speaker event towards the beginning of the film is portrayed by Richmond Arquette, David Arquette’s brother and Courteney Cox’s (then) brother-in-law.
• Reality Subtext:
  • The actors in the Stab 3 movie complain about frequent rewrites and script changes, something which happened on the set of this movie and the second one.
  • Dewey proposes to Gale in this movie. Just before production, their actors had gotten married in real life.
  • Roman complains about directing a horror movie before he gets to direct a love story. Wes Craven had to agree to do this film before directing the musical love story Music of the Heart.
  • Neve Campbell was busy filming Season 6 of Party of Five and the film Drowning Mona, which meant that Sidney's role had to be smaller, and thus more emphasis was placed on the supporting characters.
• Technology Marches On: Carrie Fisher's role as the studio archivist who has to help Jennifer and Gale search for Maureen's obscure records would be quite different in The New '10s. Gale could probably dig up lots of information on Maureen through a simple Google search. IMDB would likely have most of the information she needed (assuming that someone entered in Maureen's film credits, and her knowing that Rina Reynolds was Maureen's stage name, as well as knowing the three films she appeared in).
• Throw It In!: When Sidney jumps over the bar and stabs 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.
• Troubled Production:
  • The Columbine High School massacre had recently occurred, and the producers were pressured into toning down its violence.
  • Series creator Kevin Williamson was unavailable to return to writing duties, but he did write an outline for the film. Ehren Kruger (his replacement) all but ignored the outline (again, at least partly due to Columbine, see Distanced from Current Events above), and his script was written mostly on the fly, with pages usually completed the day they were to be filmed. The characters bore so little resemblance to their appearances in the prior films that director Wes Craven himself did rewrites.
  • The actual filming was difficult since Neve Campbell (who played lead character Sidney Prescott) was only available for a handful of days, resulting in her role being greatly reduced and more emphasis put on the supporting characters. Nobody was sure about the direction some scenes were to take, and a few were shot multiple times to allow for multiple possibilities later in the editing room.
  • The film once again ran into issues with the MPAA, and it almost resulted in Wes Craven leaving the horror genre. The resulting film had a tepid reception and only decent box office (in contrast to the critical acclaim and massive commercial success of the previous two films, as well as the later fifth and sixth films), and is today regarded as the odd-one-out of the franchise.
• Wag the Director: Liev Schreiber insisted that Cotton Weary should remove his jacket in the opening sequence. Schreiber had been working out a lot at the time and wanted to show off his physique.
• What Could Have Been:
  • There was originally going to be a second killer, Angelina, who was obsessed with Sidney since their days as high school classmates.
  • Originally, a completely different couple would die in the opening instead of Cotton and Christine, who would survive the film.
  • Only the main trio were intended to survive, according to a leaked script. Both Detectives Kincaid and Wallace were killed prior to The Reveal. In the final product, however, both survive - though Wallace is a case of What Happened to the Mouse? as he doesn’t show up again after Sidney gets the phone call to go to Milton’s home.
  • Additionally, instead of the mansion being the setting for the final act, it was intended to occur on the set of Stab 3.
  • An alternate opening was written, but never filmed. The opening scene contained Sidney Prescott and a friend of hers alone in her house (in a different state) getting ready to watch a video. Unbeknownst to Sidney, the killer calls Sidney and her friend claiming that he is in the house watching them, which turns out to be true. The killer jumps out from a closet and attempts to attack a frightened Sidney and her friend. Sidney, however, pulls out a gun and shoots the killer several times. Upon unmasking him, the killer turned out to be a fan who was pulling a prank on Sidney.
  • According to this interview and other articles, the plot originally revolved around Sidney's return to Woodsboro with Stu returning as the main killer, now conducting the scheme from prison. However, the Columbine massacre necessitated a massive rewriting of the entire script, which also led to Stu being written off as dead from the first film. This plot idea would later be recycled for Kevin Williamson's TV series The Following.
  • At one point during production, Detective Wallace was going to be one of the killers.
  • A big twist was planned for the killings to be caused by insane fans of the Stab movies. The Reveal would come when Sidney visited a house where all the teenagers had been killed, only for the bodies to get up and reveal themselves as the killers. The idea that the killers were fans of the Stab movies was later Refitted for Sequel in the fifth movie.
  • Jamie Lee Curtis was offered a role but turned it down.
  • David Boreanaz was considered for the role of Mark Kincaid.
  • Charisma Carpenter, Jennifer Connelly, Shannen Doherty, Alyssa Milano, Denise Richards, Keri Russell, Liv Tyler and Kate Winslet were all considered for Christine Hamilton.
  • Josh Hartnett, Glenn Quinn, James Van Der Beek and Paul Walker were considered for the role of Tom Prinze.
  • Selma Blair and Teri Hatcher were considered for Jennifer Jolie.
  • Ali Larter was considered for Sarah Darling.
  • Alicia Silverstone and Ben Affleck were considered for roles. Silverstone was also considered for Sarah Darling and Christine.
  • Claire Danes, Eliza Dushku and Alyson Hannigan were considered for the role of Angelina Tyler.
  • Fairuza Balk was considered for the role of Martha Meeks.
  • Benicio del Toro was considered for Roman Bridger (most likely due to his Ax-Crazy Psycho Knife Nut Psycho for Hire of a Bond henchman performance in the James Bond movie Licence to Kill, which would be appropriate considering The Reveal of Roman being the killer, making it an Actor Allusion to Benicio's said henchman role if he had been cast instead of Scott Foley).
  • Wes Craven considered playing John Milton himself. Christopher Walken was also considered.

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