Once again, Ghostface is back for his most important task: attempting to ensure the death of Dewey Riley, something it has taken him literally decades to actually do at this point.
David Arquette will return as Riley once more—as he has for every film in the saga—for the previously rumored, but now official, new attempt at bringing a fifth Scream into reality, Spyglass Media Group announced via press release today. Scream writer Kevin Williamson will executive produce the film, but with Wes Craven, Scream’s directorial architect, no longer with us, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett of filmmaking group Radio Silence (who previously directed last year’s excellent Ready or Not) will step in behind the camera. James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick—the latter of whom also co-wrote Ready or Not—will write the script, and shooting is currently expected to begin “later this year” in North Carolina, “when safety protocols are in place.”
Although Spyglass is referring to this new movie as a “relaunch” of Scream, Arquette’s return as Dewey Riley—the deputy sheriff who investigated the original string of Ghostface murders in Scream, and was almost killed off in the original’s climax, only to be saved by test audience reactions, and has gone on to appear in every Scream movie since—as well as Neve Campbell’s recent comments indicating that she may potentially reprise her role as Sidney Prescott seems to indicate that this won’t be a total reboot of the saga. You can probably expect some rebootquel magic however, given the filmmakers are very specifically not just calling this Scream 5. Or 5cream, thank god.
We’ll bring you more on Spyglass Media’s plans for Scream as we learn them.
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