A new featurette from Paramount Pictures introduces the newest members of the Scream franchise, who are ready to take down the new Ghostface killer in Woodsboro.
The upcoming Ghostface film will be the fifth installment in the Scream slasher franchise. Scream will be the first film in the Ghostface saga that will not be directed by Wes Craven, who passed away in 2015. The film is credited as a relaunch of the infamous Scream franchise and will feature the return of a few notable alums, who will guide the new additions to the cast.
The upcoming slasher film will feature the Scream debuts of Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Dylan Minnette, Mason Gooding, Kyle Gallner, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mikey Madison, and Sonia Ben Ammar. In the new featurette, Barrera mentions, "Each new character is tied to a legacy character." The legacy characters that Barrera references are former Scream characters that are both dead and alive. Scream is set to have Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, and Marley Shelton reprise their respective roles. The most blatant example of this connection is Minette's character Wes Hicks, who is the son of Shelton's character Judy Hicks.
In the featurette, Campbell, Cox, and Arquette all praised the new talent for the fresh perspectives they have brought to the Scream franchise. "To see them bringing a new perspective to the franchise while still honoring the past is really incredible," Arquette said. Throughout the featurette, glimpses of the newest film can be seen, including scenes previously shown in the official Scream trailer. Among them are scenes that bridge the past and present where new characters are seen asking past characters like Arquette's Dewey for help.
Of course, the upcoming Scream film isn't the only recent adaptation of the slasher franchise. In 2015, Scream was adapted into a television series for MTV. It aired on MTV for two seasons before moving to VH1 for its third and final season in 2019. The series' second and longest season remains it's most well-received, with an impressive 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Even with the Scream series' rather positive reception, revivals of any kind have become a dreaded addition to any release line-up. Scream has high hopes of changing that.
"Everything that the die-hard fans want is in this movie," Minnette said. The return of Ghostface and several other cast members to the familiar setting of Woodsboro already bodes well for those who hope for a nostalgic feeling. As the Scream trailer revealed, the most recent victims were all related to the original Ghostface killers, meaning the motive for this new killer may remind fans of the franchise of some of its previous installments. Callbacks like these could make the Scream relaunch successful, leading to a new group of Scream films in upcoming years.
Scream releases in theaters on January 14, 2022.
Source: Paramount Pictures