Warning: This article contains spoilers for Scream 6 and the Scream franchise in general.Scream 6 directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have explained why they chose such a feel-good ending for the film. The sequel follows the Core Four survivors of 2022’s Scream – sisters Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) as well as twins Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) – as they are menaced by a new and even more brutal Ghostface killer in New York City. However, the film ends with all four of them, plus legacy characters Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), surviving, despite Chad suffering major stab wounds.
This week, The Hollywood Reporter sat down with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett to discuss the newly released Scream 6. When asked why so many characters survived, they admitted that this surprisingly optimistic ending is a direct reference to the original Scream. Read their full quote below:
Bettinelli-Olpin: No, everything is exactly as scripted. We didn’t make any changes.
Gillett: For as brutal and as violent and as scary as [Scream VI] is, we wanted this to be a secret feel-good movie, because that’s really what [Scream (1996)] is. All the people that you love – minus Tatum [Rose McGowan], really — make it out alive, and one of the reasons that movie is so lasting and enduring is because it just feels great at the end. So we really wanted to replicate that in as big and fun and grand a way as we could.
Multiple Survivors Are a Hallmark of the Scream Franchise
One reason this massive slate of survivors is so surprising is the precedent set by this directing duo’s previous outing, the 2022 Scream. That film saw fit to have original character Dewey Riley (David Arquette) executed in a grisly murder sequence. This announced their intention to show a more brutal side of the franchise and indicate that nobody is safe moving forward.
However, a key element of the entire Scream franchise is a core cast of characters that isn’t whittled down as swiftly as the average long-running slasher series. Although Dewey didn’t make it after five outings, Gale and Sidney have survived every single Scream entry they have appeared in. This allows the Scream movies to have an unprecedented level of character consistency that more kill-heavy and continuity-light franchises like Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street are unable to have.
Scream 6 paying homage to this trend also allows the franchise to keep rolling forward smoothly with an established cast of characters. This will probably prove to be a wise move. Scream 6‘s box office has already raked in the strongest opening weekend of the entire series, so it seems incredibly likely that a Scream 7 will be greenlit sooner than later, with more potential entries to follow.
Source: THR