The Title They Were Afraid Of

Scream goes back into theaters on October 30. It was written as Scary Movie, and renamed so nobody would expect a comedy. Four years later, the same label released a comedy called Scary Movie.

Paramount is putting the original Scream back in theaters on October 30, two months ahead of its 30th birthday. They announced it at the cast reunion at Midsummer Scream (Haunted Attraction Network has the details). For the people who'd rather stay home with the lights on, there's an Amazon-exclusive 4K set coming in December with a replica cordless phone in the box, which is a very specific kind of nostalgia.

Kevin Williamson didn't write a movie called Scream. He wrote one called Scary Movie. Dimension, Miramax's genre label, bought it for somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 after a bidding war. Other studios offered more, but Williamson's lawyer told him to take the offer that came with a start date. Late in production the title went. The studio was reportedly worried that Scary Movie would make people expect a comedy, and the new name came from the Michael and Janet Jackson single from the year before. The film cost around $15 million and made about $173 million.

Four years later, Dimension released a comedy. It went after Scream scene by scene, and it was called Scary Movie. In the words of its Wikipedia page, the title “was originally the working title for the project that would eventually become Scream.” It made $278 million on a $19 million budget, more than the movie it was laughing at. It was the same label and the same front office. They were right about the title, they were just four years early.

Both franchises run through Paramount these days. In June, the new Scary Movie opened at number one with $55 million. This month, Paramount brings back the one that was almost called that. Somebody in that building gets to book both.