Scream 3 (2000)

Scream 3 (2000) moves the series to Hollywood, onto the set of a movie about the Woodsboro murders, and brings Ghostface back for Sidney Prescott. Wes Craven directed. Ehren Kruger wrote the screenplay. Dimension Films released it in the United States on February 4, 2000. Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette return, with Parker Posey as an actress playing Gale. It was the last Scream film for eleven years, and the one the series later treated as a closed trilogy.

At a glance

Release date	February 4, 2000 (United States)
Director	Wes Craven
Writer	Ehren Kruger
Starring	Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Parker Posey, Patrick Dempsey, Scott Foley
Runtime	116 minutes
Rating	R
Genre	Slasher, mystery
Budget	About $40 million
Box office	About $89.1 million domestic; about $161.8 million worldwide

Plot summary

Cotton Weary, who survived the first two films and turned that into a talk show, is killed in Los Angeles. The cast of Stab 3, the film-within-the-film about Sidney’s life, starts dying in the order of the script. Dewey Riley is working as a technical adviser on the set. Gale Weathers arrives because a story this close to the old one will not leave her alone. Sidney is living under another name in Northern California, working a crisis line, and does not intend to come south.

The new killer uses a voice box that can imitate anyone, which breaks the rule the earlier films had used to clear people. A detective, Mark Kincaid, thinks the murders connect to Sidney’s mother, Maureen, and to a few years she spent in Hollywood that the first film only hinted at. The set of Stab 3 includes a rebuilt Woodsboro house. Sidney eventually walks into a copy of her own past because the killer has built it for her.

Spoiler section: the ending

The killer is Roman Bridger, the director of Stab 3, and Maureen’s son by an assault during those Hollywood years. He blames Sidney for the life he did not get, and he claims a hand in pushing Billy Loomis toward the original murders. Sidney beats him with the voice box and with help that arrives late. The epilogue is a quiet house in Monterey, Dewey and Gale together, and a door Sidney can leave open.

Production and behind the scenes

Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first two films, was running a television slate and did not write the screenplay. He provided notes. Kruger, hired off Arlington Road, built the Hollywood plot. Craven came back as director. The budget, about $40 million, was a studio number, not the lean figure of the 1996 film. Production sat down after the Columbine shootings in 1999. Dimension asked for a less bloody cut of the script, and the finished film is more backlot mystery than the party massacre of Scream 2. Craven was open about the pressure and not entirely happy with the compromise.

Campbell had fewer days than in the earlier films. Sidney is off screen for a long stretch, which the script covers by keeping Gale and Dewey in the investigation. Posey plays Jennifer Jolie, the actress cast as Gale, as a mirror that Cox plays against. Carrie Fisher appears as a studio worker who says she almost got the part of Princess Leia. Roger Corman and Lance Henriksen turn up in smaller roles. Marco Beltrami returned for the score. The Stab scenes let the film restage its own opening with different actors, which is the joke and the alibi.

Release and reception

Dimension opened the film on February 4, 2000. It made about $34.7 million in its first weekend and about $89.1 million in the United States and Canada, with a worldwide total near $161.8 million. Reviews were the weakest of the trilogy. Audiences showed up. The Roman reveal, and the retcon about Maureen, split fans. Scream 4 waited until 2011. Later films mostly leave Roman where this one put him.

Cast

Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott
David Arquette as Dewey Riley
Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers
Parker Posey as Jennifer Jolie
Patrick Dempsey as Mark Kincaid
Scott Foley as Roman Bridger
Lance Henriksen as John Milton
Liev Schreiber as Cotton Weary

Trivia

The voice box that can sound like any character was a plot fix and a production convenience. It lets Ghostface be anyone on a phone.
Jenny McCarthy plays an actress killed in the opening. Cotton’s death retires a thread from the first film.
Fisher’s cameo is a Princess Leia joke she delivers herself.
The Woodsboro set on the Stab 3 soundstage is a copy of Sidney’s house from the first film, including the stairs.
Williamson’s unused notes included a return to Woodsboro. Kruger’s draft stayed in Los Angeles.
Beltrami’s score quotes the earlier films when Sidney walks the rebuilt house.