Courteney Cox just added more uncertainty about how to define the next chapter of the Scream saga. On The Drew Barrymore Show, while promoting her series 9 Months with Courteney Cox, she said:
“The directors are incredible. […] It’s a new franchise. It’s hip, it’s scary… It’s just a new Scream. It’s not a reboot, it’s not a remake, it’s just a brand new launch.”
What did Courteney mean by that?
Before anyone rushes to elaborate theory after theory, it’s worth remembering that every interpretation of a film, book, or painting remains subjective. So let me play devil’s advocate and bring in a voice from behind the camera.
Director Tyler Gillett offered a detailed explanation of the creative mindset, stressing respect for the franchise’s past. He said:
“I think for us we had this fear, and Matt [Bettinelli-Olpin] alluded to this earlier, going into reading the script. There’s just so much weight in what those four movies are. This by the way speaks to the legacy characters. The fact that there are so many characters that so many people want to know more about, want to have more story told with these characters. There’s just a level of love and respect for the world that Wes [Craven] and Kevin [Williamson] created. So for us it felt like the only way to do this right was to create connectivity. And a lot of it is also just what the Scream movies are, right? They’re about lineage. They’re about the evolution of pop culture and the evolution of the genre. And you can’t have something new without also giving a nod to what came before it. And paying respect, and giving a bow to what followed.”
“And so for us it felt like that was the only right way to do it. To have a connection to the past, and to find a way to create new and interesting characters that would bring a new audience and an old audience together. And hopefully move the whole thing forward in a contemporary and terrifying and fun way.“
If we accept that logic, we might describe the project as something like a sequel born within a new franchise framework—an attempt to link past and present without calling it a reboot or remake.
Watch the full interview here.
