I was looking forward to Scream 4 when they got Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette plus Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson all on board. Now it appears the whole things isn't going so well:

Already a bit sketchy, reemerging over a decade later, Scream 4, the film that will purportedly kick off a new trilogy, is having trouble putting one foot in front of the other.

After putting together the cast, Wes Craven is now seeing defections as the film enters production and on top of that, it appears that the script has undergone some last minute changes. Zap2It reports that Lauren Graham has left the project because the role she received was much smaller than the one she was promised, and her departure comes the same week Lake Bell cited scheduling conflicts and backed out, too.

And Hayden Panettiere is reportedly complaining that her supporting character has been "dumbed down significantly," and has left her "beyond frustrated."

The reason all this stuff is happening right now is because Kevin Williamson's script has been handed over to Ehren Kruger. Kruger has had more success lately than Williamson, but he also wrote Scream 3, which isn't good for anybody. Williamson bolted the project over creative conflicts, and now we can see why.

What effect will this have on the series, I wonder? Williamson was going to write the trilogy, and it's probably a safe bet that won't happen now. But with so many changes during production, we may not even get to that point.

In the meantime, four other names have signed up - Adam Brody, Marley Shelton, Alison Brie, and Erik Knudson. Problems solved!

SOURCE: http://www.getthebigpicture.net/blog/2010/7/3/scream-4-changes-writers-faces-cast-upheaval.html

I'm super bummed about Williamson if that turns out to be true. Scream 3 was ok but it's nowhere near the quality of the first two.

I loved that each Scream film had it's own tone and stood on it's own. Scream 3 wasn't gory, but the script was tight and it was a well written thriller, IMO. It had lots of humor and the mystery was simple and interesting enough.

UGH the only reason I was midly excited about this was Williamson would be back--but now that they're bnging back the guy who wrote the awful Scream 3 (the only scenes I really loved in it were the ones apparently directly from Williamson's treatment--the kinda meta stuff where Sidney is being chased on the set of the movie which replicates her original house).

Kruger has had more success with horror since Scream 3 (he did the two Ring movies here, and the ok Skeleton Key--oh and and the Trnasformer movies which were horror for me anyway). And both Kruger and Williamson did equally bad werewolf movies with Cursed and Blood and Chocolate. But I thought Williamson's reputation was ont he rise after the success of Vampire Diaries (did he drop out partly due to being busy with Vampire?)

Oh well, le sigh.

Edited July 7, 201015 yr by EricMontreal22

I'm disappointed Williamson won't be writing the new trilogy too. With all these changes, it doesn't bode well for the new movie.

If I had to guess, my guess would be Williamson bolting the project due to creative differences.

I loved that each Scream film had it's own tone and stood on it's own. Scream 3 wasn't gory, but the script was tight and it was a well written thriller, IMO. It had lots of humor and the mystery was simple and interesting enough.

So disappointed in you the humour IMHO wasn't clever--I don't want Silent Bob cameos in my Scream movies, thank you very much, and though I've only seen it once, the ending made NO sense from what I remember--and there simply were next to no scares--the scene I mentioned from the original draft maybe, and maybe some of the one with Parker Posey in the place with all the costumes, that's all that sprngs to mind.

Scream 3 was crap. For that matter, so was Scream 2, which they rewrote from the original excellent script at the last moment, but at least it wasn't sanitized. And Neve Campbell has never been able to act, so the script is an absolute must.

Ehren Kruger, again? Truly?

Edited July 24, 201015 yr by Vee

Scream 2 was gold for what it was (I agree the original script was better). Scream 3 was like a fan made movie--