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It’s About Time! The Wayans Return to Revive the ‘Scary Movie’ Franchise

It’s About Time! The Wayans Return to Revive the ‘Scary Movie’ Franchise

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Horror-loving moviegoers love Halloween, not just for its spooky and eerie decorations, dark nights, and the overall sense of mystery but because a great deal of horror movie releases target the Halloween season release, as it heightens the experience of watching a horror film. Movies like Terrifier 3, Smile 2, Don’t Move, and Rippy have already hit theaters, giving horror lovers an amazing Halloween season. However, this Halloween also brings some fantastic news, among which is the Scary Movie 6 announcement.  

Namely, the Wayans brothers — Marlon, Shawn, and Keenan Ivory — are officially reuniting with Miramax and Paramount Pictures and returning to the Scary Movie franchise. And yes, we’re well aware that the Scary Movie franchise isn’t actually horror, but it’s among one of the best parody film series that focuses on spoofing the horror, slasher, and mystery genre. In fact, its name is a rather clever play by the Wayans brothers since the original 1996 Scream — regarded as one of the greatest horror and slasher franchises of all time — was actually codenamed Scary Movie during development.

The news regarding the new Scary Movie installment was initially dropped at CinemaCon, which took place from April 8 to April 11 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, but nothing much was revealed about the movie since and no writers were attached to the projects following the original announcement. That all changed when Marlon Wayans, one of the co-writers of the original movie, confirmed via his social media accounts that the franchise is reuniting with its architects for the first time in over two decades.   

Marlon’s brother, Shawn Wayans, who co-wrote Scary Movie with Marlon, also shared the same announcement via his social media. Online media reports that Marlon, Shawn, and Keenen Ivory Wayans will write and produce the new Scary Movie film alongside Rick Alvarez, who previously worked with Marlon on Fifty Shades of Black (an obvious poke at the similarly-named movie) and Haunted House, which parodies the “found footage” horror genre movies, like Paranormal Activity and The Devil Inside.

For those who aren’t familiar with the work the Wayans brothers did on the Scary Movie franchise, the original 2000s movie was directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and written by Marlon and Shawn Wayans, who also starred in the movie. Marlon portrayed Shorty Meeks, a laid-back, funny, and perpetually high character who parodies the classic stoner archetypes seen in horror movies. Shawn, on the other hand, portrays Ray Wilkins, a character who humorously explores themes around identity, often subverting stereotypes with a questionable approach to his own sexual identity.

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The first movie was a massive hit and became one of the highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time, at least back in the day. The movie opened at nearly $43 million, which was the biggest opening for an R-rated horror movie with a Black director at the time. It ended up earning $278 million on a $19 million budget by mainly parodying Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The Wayans reprised their roles in the sequel, which parodied movies such as The Haunting and The Exorcist. However, the sequel failed to meet the success of the original movie despite the bigger budget.

Scary Movie 2 also marked the end of the Wayans siblings’ involvement with the
franchise due to reasons that were initially undisclosed. However, in 2022,
Marlon disclosed that the Weinstein Company (Dimension Films) basically snatched the franchise from them following a “take it or leave it” type of deal regarding the third film. The brothers passed on an offer that was borderline
insulting from a financial standpoint. But that didn’t stop the Weinsteins from
basing Scary Movie 3 on an idea the Wayans had pitched. The movie ended up
being the second most successful of the franchise.  

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The production of the new installment will be financed entirely by Miramax, with Paramount distributing the movie. The beginning of principal photography hasn’t been set, but previous reports suggested that it would commence in late 2024 while aiming for the 2025 release date. Fortunately, with the Wayans brothers’ return to the franchise, Scary Movie 6 might just nudge the film series back on the correct course.

Also, the massive changes in the horror cinema landscape should aid the process, as it provided the Wayans with ample opportunity to spoof tons of recent horror flicks, such as The Conjuring, IT, Five Nights at Freddy’s, A Quiet Place, Smile, The Nun, etc. Horror movies aren’t going anywhere, so why not continue the horror parody tradition and make the sixth installment as great as the first two Scary Movie films?

Ultimately, there are plenty of other details associated with the projects that remain either unknown or speculative, like the reports of an original screenplay, potential appearances from the franchise’s original cast — such as Regina Hall and Anna Faris — and whether or not the Wayans might reprise their roles from the original movie.


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