Kevin Williamson Reveals A Bonkers Alternate Opening For Scream 4
The introductory scenes in the "Scream" franchise have become iconic, as the films always start out with a confrontation with Ghostface, the mysterious robed killer. Drew Barrymore kicked off this trend in 1996 with her short-lived character Casey, who is killed after failing to answer a "Friday the 13th" question correctly. Back then, casting "Scream" with an actor as popular as Barrymore was important, because her immediate murder came as a huge shock to audiences, particularly as Barrymore had been included in all of the promotional material (via People Magazine). Since then, various parodies and homages have paid tribute to this trope.
"Scream 4" premiered in 2011, a decade after the conclusion of the initial trilogy. The film began traditionally with the typical creepy phone call. But it becomes apparent quickly that the introduction is another example what "Scream" does best — a glorious meta experiment (via Salon) — as this opening scene ends up being a film within a film, which culminates in a brutal bloodbath.
Recently, with the upcoming fifth (and final) installment of "Scream," screenwriter Kevin Williamson has revealed that there was originally a different plan for the fourth movie's opening scene.
Sidney was supposed to be the victim
As the official final girl of "Scream," Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is always the one to survive the events of the film. But originally, in "Scream 4," she was supposed to be the victim of the opening scene.
Of course, because the franchise is Sidney's story, Williamson's intention was not to actually kill her: The scene's big twist was going to be that after the battle between Sidney and a new version of Ghostface, she would survive the encounter. "It was a big, huge, 15-minute fight where she kept stabbing the killer, the killer kept stabbing her. I think she was stabbed five times, and she was crawling across the floor. And then she killed the killer, and the surprise was she didn't die," Williamson told Entertainment Weekly.
This differs from the beginning scene of the other movies, where the character always dies: this time, it was the Ghostface killer who perished. Williamson goes on to say that he didn't feel as though that worked for Sidney. Sidney would be returning to Woodsboro anyway and confront another killer there. Instead, he wanted to ensure that the meta film series "Stab" continued on ("Stab" is the movie series inside "Scream" that is based on Sidney's encounters with Ghostface).
"Scream" has always been self-referential: a franchise aware of all the slasher film tropes, which plays off of them in twisty-turney new ways. The final opening of "Scream 4" stayed true to what the series has always been about, and this will hopefully continue in the final installment.