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The Scream Franchise: A Look at the Creation and Success of the Iconic Horror Series

Published

3 years ago

January 19, 2023

With the latest release of the new Scream VI trailer, which you can watch here, we thought we should look back at how Ghostface slashed his way into being a horror genre legend.

The Scream franchise is one of the most iconic and successful horror movie series of all time. Directed by legendary horror mastermind, Wes Craven, the movies follow a group of teens who find themselves being stalked by a killer known as Ghostface. But how did this terrifying franchise come to be?

It all started in 1996 with the release of the first Scream movie. Written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven, the movie was a fresh take on the horror genre, with a clever and self-referential script that poked fun at the conventions of typical slasher films. The movie starred Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette, and quickly became a box office hit, grossing $173 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing slasher film until the release of Halloween (2018).

Screenwriter Kevin Williamson came up with the idea for the movie while watching a 1994 episode of ABC News’ Turning Point about the serial killer dubbed the Gainesville Ripper. House-sitting at the time, Williamson was spooked when he saw a window was open that he was convinced he had closed.

After the film landed at Dimension, the task of finding a director was underhand. Wes Craven did eventually sign as the director after initially passing on the project.

“Every name you could imagine came up [to direct],” Williamson told The Ringer. “Wes’s name came up really early. Robert Rodriguez‘s name came up. Quentin Tarantino’s name came up.”

Ultimately, it was Craven’s then-assistant Julie Plec, who would go on to co-create The Vampire Diaries among other TV hits, who helped convince him to return to the genre after the filmmaker’s New Nightmare failed to perform at the box office.

“At the time I was working at Wes’s house, so I would have lunch with him every day. And so I said, ‘Remember that great script? They’re having a hard time finding a director and they really want you to do it,'” Plec recalled to The Ringer. “I was just kind of making quote-unquote innocent small talk. And he said, ‘Ah, well they should just make me an offer I can’t refuse then.’ And I think he was joking, but I went back to [director of development] Lisa [Harrison] and I said, ‘He said make him an offer he can’t refuse.’ And so Dimension did. And he took it.”

But the success of Scream didn’t stop there. The movie was also a critical darling, with many praising its clever writing and inventive use of horror tropes. This led to the creation of a sequel, Scream 2, which was released in 1997. The sequel was just as successful as the first movie, grossing $172 million worldwide and receiving positive reviews from critics. This was an even greater success due to the fact that their were significant issues with plot information leaking onto the internet – including the reveal of the killers – causing several script re-writes.

The franchise continued to grow with the release of Scream 3 in 2000, Scream 4 in 2011, and Scream 5 in 2022. Each movie introduced new characters and new twists to the series, while still maintaining the same blend of horror and humor that made the first movie such a hit.

Box Office Gross of the Scream Movies:

Scream (1996) $173 Million USD
Scream 2 $172.4 Million USD
Scream 3 $161.8 Million USD
Scream 4 $97.2 Million USD
Scream 5 $140 Million USD

All five Scream movies have grossed over $744.4 million worldwide, and the franchise has become a cultural phenomenon, inspiring a TV series, merchandise, and even a video game.

The movies have also become beloved by horror fans, with many praising the franchise for its clever writing, memorable characters, and inventive use of horror tropes. And with the success of the franchise, it’s clear that the Scream movies will continue to be a staple in the horror genre for years to come.

Overall, the Scream franchise is one of the most successful and influential horror series of all time. And if you’re a fan of horror movies, it’s definitely worth checking out. So grab some popcorn and get ready to scream!

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News

The Practical Magic 2 Teaser Trailer Is Finally Here

Published

11 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Luna Gray

The Practical Magic 2 teaser trailer is out, and it is worth taking a second to appreciate what we are actually looking at here. A film that bombed at the box office in 1998, fell short of recouping its $75 million budget, and got mixed reviews at best is now getting a sequel with its full original cast, a rebuilt set, and a room full of theater owners losing their minds at CinemaCon.

What Happened the First Time

The original Practical Magic came out in October 1998 and critics did not know what to do with it. It was part romantic comedy, part domestic abuse drama, part supernatural thriller, part crime story. The tonal whiplash was real, and the reviews reflected that. The film underperformed. Nobody called it a classic.

Then it became one anyway. The film found its audience over the following two decades, particularly among millennial women who responded to what it was actually doing underneath the genre mess. A film about women protecting each other, centered entirely on a bloodline of women, with a finale built around a community of women coming together.

What the Trailer Shows

Sandra Bullock opens the teaser in voiceover as Sally: “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Owens family. The ones from Massachusetts. The ones their neighbors whisper are witches.” Nicole Kidman is back as Gillian, settled into life with a black cat. The house on the cliff was rebuilt from scratch for the film.

Bullock said of returning: “Coming back didn’t feel like shooting a sequel. It felt like coming back home.” Given that the original cast and director were not involved in any franchise maintenance for twenty-eight years, that is something.

The Cast

Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest are both back as the aunts Frances and Jet. The film adds Joey King as Sally’s daughter. She uncovers buried family secrets and develops dark powers of her own. Maisie Williams, Xolo Maridueña, and Solly McLeod round out the new generation.

Practical Magic 2 opens September 11, 2026.

News

The HUNGRY Red Band Trailer Is Here and We Need to Stop Laughing at the Hippo

Published

11 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Luna Gray

The trailer for HUNGRY dropped this morning, and before we get into it, I want to address something. You are going to look at the words “hippo horror movie” and your brain is going to do a thing. It is going to go to Hungry Hungry Hippos. It is going to think this is a joke. You are going to be wrong, and the hippo is going to eat you for it.

Hippos kill an estimated 500 people per year in Africa. They are the third largest land animal on earth. They weigh up to 4,000 pounds, can run up to 19 miles per hour, and are aggressively territorial in both water and on land. The animals are also largely nocturnal, which means most of what they do to people happens in the dark. Jaws made us afraid of open water for forty years and sharks kill roughly five people globally per year. Five. Do the math.

The hippo has been waiting for its movie. HUNGRY might actually be it.

What Is Happening in This Movie

HUNGRY follows a group of tourists on a riverboat tour through the Louisiana swamplands who get lured off the main route with the promise of an exclusive experience. What they find instead is a ravenous hippopotamus lurking beneath the bayou’s murky water that has very different ideas about how this excursion is going to go.

That is the whole premise. Tourists. Swamp. Hippo. No one gets out easily.

The Louisiana bayou setting is doing a lot of work here. It is a landscape that already feels like it is hiding something. The water is opaque. The trees close in. Sound travels differently. If you are going to put an apex predator somewhere and make it feel genuinely threatening, a Louisiana swamp is about as correct a choice as you can make. The film is leaning into that and the trailer makes it clear this is not a sunlit adventure film. This is a survival movie.

Distributed by AURA Entertainment and classified as a survival thriller and creature horror, the film opens June 23.

News

This Week in Horror: CinemaCon Delivered, Nicolas Cage Is Coming Back, and Someone Let Ti West Near a Christmas Story

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2026

Luna Gray

It was a big week. CinemaCon happened, a Longlegs sequel got announced, and Lee Cronin’s The Mummy opened today, which we already covered but deserves to be in the roundup anyway because it is the biggest horror release of the month, and you should go see it. Here is everything else.

CinemaCon: The Horror Stuff

CinemaCon ran April 13 through 16 in Las Vegas and there was a lot. Here is what matters to us.

Werwulf got a real trailer, and it looks unhinged in the best way.

Robert Eggers’ follow-up to Nosferatu showed up at Universal’s presentation and it sounds like exactly what you want it to be. Aaron Taylor-Johnson transforms into a werewolf. Grimy medieval England. Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Ralph Ineson are all in this. Variety called the transformation sequence alone worth the price of admission.

Practical Magic 2 happened and it was genuinely emotional.

Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman walked out together at Warner Bros.’ presentation and the room apparently lost it. The sequel reunites the Owens sisters, brings back Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing, and adds Maisie Williams and Xolo Maridueña as the next generation. They rebuilt the original house on the cliff. Sally is single now. If you know the original film you know why.

Ti West and Johnny Depp are making a Christmas horror movie and I have questions.

Paramount showed first footage from Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol, directed by Ti West and starring Depp in prosthetics as Scrooge. Ian McKellen is Jacob Marley. The Ghost of Christmas Present apparently shows up with his ribcage open. It is a Ti West film, so presumably this will be deeply upsetting by the end. Filing this under “extremely interested and also a little scared.”

Scary Movie is coming back June 5.

The original cast is back. Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, Regina Hall. The footage shown at Paramount’s panel apparently goes after reboots, remakes, elevated horror, and origin stories. That is a lot of ground to cover.

The Longlegs Universe Is Expanding

Osgood Perkins and Nicolas Cage are doing another Longlegs film, this time at Paramount, which picked it up because the scope was apparently bigger than Neon could handle. Not calling it a sequel exactly, more like something set in the same universe.

The Terror Is Back

The Terror: Devil in Silver drops May 7 on AMC+ and Shudder, and it looks like a proper return for the anthology. Dan Stevens stars as Pepper, a man committed to a psychiatric hospital who starts wondering if what he is experiencing is supernatural or if he is actually losing his mind. Based on Victor LaValle’s novel of the same name, who is also the showrunner. Judith Light, CCH Pounder, Stephen Root, and Marin Ireland are in the cast. Ridley Scott remains an executive producer. The first two seasons of The Terror were genuinely excellent, and this one has the cast to back it up.

Also Worth Knowing

Faces of Death is in theaters now and sitting at 69% on Rotten Tomatoes. Directed by Daniel Goldhaber, stars Barbie Ferreira as a content moderator who finds what might be real execution videos on a TikTok-style platform. It is a smart premise and the reviews say it mostly delivers.

Passenger got a trailer this week. André Øvredal, who directed The Autopsy of Jane Doe and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, is calling it his scariest film yet. A supernatural entity latches onto a couple on a road trip.

The Young People from Osgood Perkins is still coming October 30, which means we are getting two Perkins-adjacent projects in the same year. This one stars Lola Tung, Nico Parker, Tatiana Maslany and Nicole Kidman and follows two school friends whose relationship turns sinister as one starts exhibiting disturbing behavior. Between this, Werwulf, and Other Mommy, fall 2026 is looking very good.

That is the week. Go see The Mummy.