MTV is about to make a splash with its tongue-in-cheek TV adaptation of the popular Scream horror series, but fans of the franchise may be about to let loose some screams of their own now that comments by Harvey Weinstein to The Wall Street Journal have revealed that any hopes for feature film sequels are seemingly dead and gone.
The reveal came in the following paragraph, in which Weinstein, whose film company was behind 2011’s underwhelming Scream 4, threw his support behind the MTV series:
Bob Weinstein, the longtime horror-movie maven who runs the Weinstein Co. with his brother Harvey, says there won’t be any more “Scream” movies, and that MTV is the right place for the property to find its next life. “It’s like putting an art-house movie in an art-house theater—where the teens reside is MTV.”
After Scream 4 pulled in $97 million against a $40 million budget, which was more than a little short of the $110 million Weinstein had personally predicted, sequel talk died down, though series mastermind Wes Craven opined that he still believed Scream 4 would kick off a new trilogy of movies. That’s obviously changed now that MTV is in the equation and revamping the Scream mythology for its own purposes.
Our own Mitchel Broussard was a fan of the Scream pilot, explaining that the show sets itself apart from the franchise and also establishes itself so winningly that he would be happy to see the series going on for years (which surely aligns with MTV and Weinstein’s vision), but horror hounds are surely balking at the idea that Ghostface will never kill on the big screen again.
Scream is a lot more meta and modern than horror franchises like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, but it’s distinct and held in high-enough esteem that it would be shocking not to hear about some theatrical reboot and sequel somewhere down the road – particularly now that MTV is working to restore public interest in the brand.
For now, though, it appears that Scream will tell its next chapter on the small screen. Fans can judge for themselves the new direction that the franchise is taking – the series premieres on MTV tomorrow.
