panic heats up | Discover several curiosities of the 2nd horror franchise film

The Scream franchise will release its last installment in theaters in January 2022. The fifth film, which this time will not have a number in its title and will only be called Scream, will feature returns from veterans of the franchise: Neve Campbell (Sidney), Courteney Cox (Gale) and David Arquette (Dewey), and will serve as a reboot of the series on the big screen, passing the baton from the original cast to the next generation. Something like this had been attempted in Scream 4 ten years ago. The franchise’s change of mind isn’t just in front of the screen, with the new feature being released by Paramount Pictures and leaving the hands of Miramax. Other than that, this will be the first film in the franchise that will not be directed by the late Wes Craven, who died in 2015. Now in charge is Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, the duo behind the hit. Bloody cult. Wedding (2019).

To keep the engines (more) warm, CinePOP has brought in plenty of articles on the franchise’s previous films – most of them written by this friend talking to you. So, nothing more natural than to address now the last feature film that had been left out so far in this treatment: Scream 2 (1997), the second best episode (and some say it’s the best of all. ) of the franchise. Get the most interesting behind-the-scenes anecdotes from this first Scream sequel, which has retained the high standard of the original.

The late director of all films in the franchise, Wes Craven, was an expert in the horror genre, with many years on the road. In this way, he was able to deal with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America – or the American Film Association) like anyone else, which, among other things, regulates the censorship of films. In the original film, the filmmaker had already encountered obstacles when the organ demanded that many scenes be cut so as not to achieve a high mark. The second time around, Craven came up with a plan and sent in a copy of Scream 2 that contained more violent and explicit scenes, scenes he didn’t really intend to use in the final cut. Craven’s plan was for the censors to demand the removal of such violent clips, which would end up leaving the film as the director initially intended.

Famous actors who almost made the movie

Panic (1996) became more than an absolute success, the film became a phenomenon and set the rules of the industry, becoming one of the most influential films in the horror genre. Its cast was mainly made up of young actors who were unknown or who were in television series at the time (see Friends and Party of Five – The Quintet). So when it came time to pick out the characters for the sequel, a lot of young actors jumped into whatever they had to play a role in the movie. Like for example Tobey Maguire, targeted for the role of Mickey, which ended up in the hands of Timothy Olyphant. Another that almost happened in Scream 2 was Denise Richards, who was offered a role she unfortunately had to turn down due to scheduling conflicts with Star Troops, released the same year, which she was still filming and would be responsible for its revelation.

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Two very famous actresses who were also close to being in the film were Reese Witherspoon and Alicia Silverstone. Have you thought? In fact, the two were being considered for the same role: Cici, which ended up, of course, with Sarah Michelle Gellar. At the time, Silverstone was one of the most popular young names due to the success of The Beverly Hills Girlfriends, released two years earlier, and would star in Excess Baggage in 1997. Witherspoon, on the other hand, was just emerging from the thriller. . Fear (1996), his teenage revelation. On the other hand, Selma Blair, who will become famous in Segundas Intenções (1999), participates in Scream 2 only with her voice. She’s the one talking on the phone with Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character.

Buffy Hard in the fall

As everyone knows, Sarah Michelle Gellar made a name for herself in pop culture when she starred in the cult hit series Buffy – The Vampire Slayer, a show that ran from 1997 to 2003. Otherwise Said, the show had just opened and was already making some noise. when Gellar was cast for the role of Cici in Scream 2. His role is small, but it helped his trajectory as one of the hottest names of the 1990s. an intense series with plenty of fights. So director Wes Craven decided on a scene Gellar should do without using any liners. The scene of her death, when thrown from a three-story balcony. The actress was reluctant, but finally agreed to achieve the feat.

Different title

Unlike other horror franchises, Scream, despite its immense quality above the rest in the subgenre, can be considered the least creative when it comes to its titles. In general, films in a horror franchise, in addition to the numbers that mark their sequels, also have subtitles. Panic only has the numbers in chronological order, that is to say until this most recent copy which will drop the number 5 in its title to just become “Scream”. This is the lack of creativity. In any case, it was not always like that. And in this first sequel, the franchise would play with some titles that were being considered. Among them were: “Scream Again”, “Scream Louder” and “Scream: The Sequel”. Let’s face it, all better than Scream 2. In fact, the sequel was filmed with the title Scream: The Sequel, or Scream: The Sequel, with the production crew even wearing shirts and hats with that title. However, the decision to keep the name was denied by Miramax.

Quick follow-up

Writer Kevin Williamson, responsible for the screenplay for the first film and that sequel, said he got the idea for both while still writing the screenplay for the first. According to the author, while writing Panico (1996), he discovered that history had new possibilities. As a result, pre-production for the sequel began six months after the original was released. Scream 2 would debut less than a year after its predecessor.

script leak

In 1997, we were still living at the beginning of the Internet age. But since the world is the world, human beings will always use inventions created for good in a negative way, which will harm others. So the leaked scripts and spoilers are nothing new. In fact, the production of Scream 2 has struggled like this and will become one of the first big movies to have its screenplay leaked to the internet. And as we know, the history of these films depends a lot on their twists. Despite all the security around the text, as the cast didn’t know who the killer was until the end of pre-production and hadn’t received the last ten pages of the script, those last pages were printed on gray paper. (to make it difficult to copy) and other security measures, the script would eventually leak onto the internet from the hands of one of the extras. As a result, the script had to be almost entirely rewritten, with some pages being completed by the time of filming.

Among the biggest box offices of the same year

1997 was a pivotal year for the Panic franchise. Scream 2 and the original were among the biggest box offices that year. Scream 2 was released in early December 1997 and in its opening weekend alone it would gross more than its budget, ending its global box office with nearly $ 200 million. Panico, meanwhile, was released around the 1996 Christmas season and achieved most of its box office (also nearly US $ 200 million) early in the same year as the second, 1997.

be afraid in blockbusters

Panic has an irreverent concept that turned out to be a masterstroke, but basically it’s a small production by Hollywood standards. A teenage horror. Its massive success, however, prompted major studios to take a close look at the sequel. Everyone yearned for Scream 2 and even the biggest blockbusters started to dread the competition with this long-awaited sequel. So two of the biggest movies of 1997 changed their release dates to not face the “humble” Scream 2. It’s moral. Even more when we learned that these films were none other than The Almighty Titanic, by James Cameron, and 007 – Tomorrow Never Dies.

MTV Welcome Contest

In the late 1990s, MTV was still the biggest medium of communication for young people – since YouTube still had no dreams of being born. So, being Panico a franchise extremely aimed at young and adolescent audiences, nothing better than if MTV linked its name to this work. So the TV music channel created a contest in which the winner would win an appearance in the highly anticipated Scream 2. The winner was Paulette Patterson, who appears at the start of the film as a movie worker who hands out the Ghostface masks to the characters. of Jada Pinkett Smith and Omar Epps, the first victims of the sequel.

“Warrior” actresses

As noted, most of the young actors in Scream 2 had other jobs as TV stars in hit series at the time. This was the case for Neve Campbell (Party of Five), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), Courteney Cox (Friends) and Jerry O’Connell (Sliders). That way, they needed to “unfold in half” to be able to handle both jobs. Campbell, for example, recorded Party of Five on Mondays and Tuesdays during the day, and recorded Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays for Scream 2, which were almost always at night. On Sundays, she slept through the night in terror until 6 a.m., went home to shower and wash away the fake blood from herself, and immediately walked to the set of her series to record the whole day. day, no sleep at all.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was recording Buffy and had just finished filming I Know What You Did Last Summer, also from a screenplay by Kevin Williamson. Despite the tight schedule, the actress admitted in an interview that she agreed to participate in the film without even reading the script, not missing the opportunity due to the success of the original. Clever girl.

Two talented directors

Wes Craven is a horror movie icon and outside of The Nightmare Hour, the Scream franchise is certainly his most beloved work. Although closely associated with these films, Craven was not the only director of Scream 2. Let me explain. It turns out that Robert Rodriguez, then on the rise thanks to the consecutive successes of El Mariachi (1992), The Ballad of the Gunslinger (1995) and Um Drink no Inferno (1996), was a director in the “movie within the movie Besides the joke, Rodriguez was the one who commissioned the scenes for “Stab” in Scream 2. He was the one who shot the scenes with Heather Graham (Casey) and Luke Wilson (Billy).

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