Movies - TV
What Made Shooting Scream 4 So Tough For Wes Craven
By MICHAEL BOYLE
Spoiler Warning!
This story contains spoilers for
"Scream 4."
Cox’s Availability
The Gale Weathers' scenes had to be scheduled precisely because Courtney Cox had limited availability due to her TV show, “Cougar Town.” There was also awkwardness around the fact that Cox and David Arquette were separated at the time and heading for divorce, but by all accounts, both actors remained professional.
No Williamson
Although writer Kevin Williamson tried to push back his TV show, “The Secret Circle,” to work on "Scream 4," the network didn’t allow it. "The network basically said, 'We'll sue you.’ So we lost Kevin. And we brought Ehren Kruger in," Craven said, adding, "it's definitely Kevin's story, frame, characters.” Still, the scripting was a messy process.
Kirby's Limited Role
In the original script, Kirby's most memorable scene of winning a high-stakes trivia game with Ghostface goes on for longer, and her performance is far more impressive. Audiences also would have gotten a lot more interaction between Kirby and Sydney during the game than the movie ended up having.
Ever-Changing Script
There seemed to be two competing visions for the movie. One story would deconstruct reboots by killing off an entire new generation of survivors to reaffirm Sidney, Gale, and Dewey as the irreplaceable core of the franchise, while the other would reboot the franchise centered around all new characters.