Alison Brie Wants More ‘Scream’ Characters To Die (But Not Those Ones)

One of the biggest challenges facing reboots of popular franchises is that they must recapture the tone and magic of the originals without simply copying and pasting what was done before. The new Naked Gun accomplished that very well, with the benefit of being a film that is well aware it is a reboot of a franchise and revels in that fact; Liam Neeson’s Frank Drebin Jr. tells a picture of his father, “I want to be just like you, but at the same time be completely different and original.” It’s pretty great! Another movie that was very aware it was a reboot was the 2022 Scream.

Scream has always played in the meta space, and the Melissa Barrera-starring sequel stuck to that. It ushered in a new group of young folks to go toe-to-toe with GhostFace, while bringing back stars like Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courtney Cox. The film really matches the tone of the original four, and I’d even call it a better movie than the third. Yes, I agree Parker Posey is great in that movie, and it’s better than most bad horror sequels, but it still ain’t great.

The new film was a success, and unfortunately, a sequel was rushed into development. It lost what made the films special and began to resemble a sequel that could have been for any horror franchise. It also commits two cardinal sins: beginning the movie with an intriguing idea that they immediately do away with (we should have followed Tony Revolori the whole film), and they try to pretend that Montreal is New York (it’s not, and it never will be). The producers also wouldn’t pay Neve Campbell what she’s worth (insanity). However, if you ask Alison Brie, there’s something else wrong with the new Scream pictures.

Brie appeared in Scream 4, the last to be directed by the masterful Wes Craven. In an interview for her new movie Together, she and her husband, the non-sh*tty Franco, joked that she should be back in the franchise, since so many characters keep returning. “Yeah, where’s my role in Scream 7?” Brie exclaimed. “I hear tons of people are coming back. … I mean, Hayden [Panettiere] came back in [Scream] 6.” I think Brie is mostly being facetious, as Panettiere was stabbed only to fall off camera, whereas we saw Brie’s corpse crash into a news van, and her character (Sidney’s publicist) has no real reason to return as a ghost or figment of someone’s psychosis.

The Community actress then goes on to lay out her “problem with the current era” of horror movie franchises. “Too many people live,” she noted. “The ‘core four’ needs to die. We killed [Jamie Kennedy’s Randy Meeks] in Scream 2. We should be down to two of the ‘core four,’ just by Scream 7.” While I don’t disagree with Brie that stakes need to be raised, Scream spent the first four movies mostly not killing the main cast, with Kennedy’s Meeks being the one exception. The franchise introduces new characters and actors and revels in making the main cast watch them die (or find out they’re crazed murderers). But Brie goes on to contradict her point soon afterward.

The 2022 film raises the stakes by killing David Arquette’s lovable Dewey Riley. According to Brie, that was “very sad” and “a mistake.” She went on to say, “Keep the main three.” In her defense, the Scream film she starred in was about protecting the “main three,” but they were not the main characters in the new films. They will be for Scream 7, because the producers unjustly fired Melissa Barrera, causing Jenna Ortega to peace out, and tried to make up for it by finally paying Neve Campbell what she’s worth. Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown are returning, so we will be down to two of the core four. So, I guess Brie is getting what she wanted (albeit in a monkey’s paw kind of way).