They said if it ever happened, it would not be til ten years after Scream 3.

Its been 10 years.

For the entire duration of those 10 years there has been a multitude of fake information and stories about Scream 4 all over the internet. Most of them were easy to spot, but there are alot of gullible people out there. For over 9 years none of that info piqued my interest–even being such a huge Scream fan.

None of it was official (even though lots claimed to be) until pretty recently.

Scream was huge, it did what very few movies could and opened in number 7 on its first theatrical weekend, and over the weeks climbed steadily til it hit number one. I can think of a handful of movies I’ve ever seen do that. Less. Generally if a movie is going to be number one, it opens there. Scream was huge. Made for a pretty moderate budget by any standard, and broke 100 million back when breaking 100 million was phenomenal–especially for a horror movie. It truly launched the careers of every person involved. The cast and crew have only gone on to bigger and bigger things. There is talk of Neve Campbell being out of work, but she really is doing what she wants to. She is happy doing plays in Toronto and lower budget movies. Just like Craven has been offered 150 million dollar movies to direct and turned them down for the lack of freedom when working for a studio with that kind of cash.

Scream 2 was everything a sequel should be, and pointed out just what the flaws of sequels (and specifically horror sequels) are throughout the movie. It did the same business as the first movie, and generally was as well liked as the first.

Scream 3 disappointed. Mostly it was the lack of Kevin Williamson that took away from it. Ehren Kruger is a good writer, but this was Kevin’s baby.

The most recent big bit of fake news was that some 27 year old had the job for writing Scream 4, that he was a huge fan of the series, and that he was well into banging out the script for Scream 4. This news looked a bit more reliable than alot of the past ten years, but I hoped it wasn’t true. I’ve read alot of Scream fan fiction. Stuff die-hard fans of the series have written. It was all shit. None of it was even worth reading. None.

Thankfully it wasn’t true. When those involved with the first 3 movies said they would consider Scream 4 in ten years, Kevin Williamson never really said one way or the other. He envisioned a trilogy, why would he have any interest in 4 even if he had little involvement and kind of missed out on making part 3?

Kevin Williamson IS writing Scream 4. He’s also writing Scream 5 and Scream 6.

What do we know for sure at this point? It will be made. It will likely be fasttracked like the two and three were. Each movie was made within a year of each other. Aside from Saw and a handful of other movies (Matrix 2 and 3 don’t count, they were filmed at the same time) its pretty uncommon and pretty hard to bang out a movie a year, at least one of substance that has real effort put in.

Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox Arquette, and David Arquette will all return. Whether they are in 4-6 isn’t known yet. When writing Scream 2, Williamson many times said the only person safe in this series is Sidney, they he would not kill her off. He proved that by killing what was debateably everyones favourite character, and in broad daylight in public. Whether K.W still thinks Sidney should be off limits, I guess only he knows. The only other option would be killing the three of them off after introducing a new cast of characters and introducing a new leading lady (or man) for the series.

Dewey and Gale may have children in this one, don’t know yet if that is fact, its just something Courteney mentioned as a possibility.

Randy may somehow make an appearance. How is unknown. I would find it pretty unlikely he left behind not one but two “play this video after I’m dead” videos.

Wes Craven has not signed on, however he has had meetings with Kevin Williamson and was said to think the story Kevin related to him was fucking brilliant.

Once he gets his hands on the actual finished script, that will very, very likely change. Neve Campbell even said as much.

Marco Beltrami, the (now Oscar Nominated) composer who got his first big job working on the first Scream is likely returning, as he is a frequent Craven corroborator.

The story itself is completely under wraps at the moment but Kevin is hard at work on it, and loving it. Some of his recent Twitter comments: “Scream 4 all day. No distractions. Heaven.”  “It’s all about S4 this weekend.” “spending the night in Woodsboro.” “Lying in bed with my Sidney and Gale”. The only thing we really know is that it will take place in Woodsboro again.

If the first movie mocked horror movie rules and their cliche situations, and Scream 2 made fun of sequels, Kevin says Scream 4 is going to mock PG-13 horror and remakes, who doesn’t want that?

The first 3 all came out in December (okay, 3 was scheduled to, and was fully finished, but was pushed off til February 4th to be the first theatrically released horror movie of the new millenium) but Scream 4 is likely to be out mid-summer of 2010 if everything goes as planned.

With all the makers of the first two movies involved, hopes are high. It will have to be brilliant to make up for the letdown people felt at Scream 3. With Kevin writing it, the surviving characters returning, getting to see Woodsboro again, all we need is Wes Craven officially signed on for this to be looking really fucking good!