‘Scream’ Remembered The Most Important Rule Of Legacy Sequels

With a four-day domestic total of $34 million, the fifth Scream movie is a rare example of a true-blue resurrection, whereby a previously dead franchise arrives with “just another franchise installment” and essentially picks back up where it left off in raw global box office. There are reasons for this miracle, including generational nostalgia for Scream 4 (which earned poor reviews, a B- from Cinemascore and $98 million on a $40 million budget in 2011) that made Scream into a skewed breakout sequel. Yes, I’ll concede that the film’s meta-commentary threatened to turn it into the very thing, a nostalgia-centric remake of Scream, it was decrying. However, in terms of generating pre-release interest and post-release desire for potential future installments, it followed the most important rule of legacy sequels: Don’t let the franchise stars overshadow the newbies.  

Jasmin Savoy Brown (who between Scream and the first season finale of Yellowjackets had an excellent weekend) plays the niece of the late Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), and she takes up the “modern day film nerd” mantle with a brief monologue explaining the new wave of nostalgia-driven legacy sequels (called “requels” in the film) while naming off several high-profile examples (Halloween, Terminator: Dark Fate, The Force Awakens, etc.). Yes, it’s new franchise installment which takes place within the same continuity as the prior films, one that acknowledges the full franchise even if it mostly gives its time and attention to the first movie and threatens to become a loose remake of that beloved installment. It also features legacy characters (Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courtney Cox) as mentors to a new generation of more diverse heroes and villains.  

Sidney, Dewey and Gale show up in supporting roles for Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s relaunch. Unlike in Scream 4 (which billed itself as a riff on remakes but was an ahead-of-its-time legacy sequel) or the likes of Terminator: Dark Fate, Halloween or Independence Day: Resurgence, this fifth film gives most of the spotlight to the new kids. Its protagonist isn’t Sidney but rather Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), who returns to Woodsboro after years of estrangement when her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) is attacked and nearly killed by a new Ghostface. She has a secret that links her to the franchise mythology, but A) it’s revealed quickly and B) it’s never allowed to be her defining character trait. As the attacks continue, Sam and her boyfriend Richard (Jack Quaid) track down a retired and alcoholic Dewey Riely for help.  

Arquette is playing “Han Solo in The Force Awakens” here, including his estrangement from Gale Weathers and his relative rock-bottom existence. Dewey becomes a grizzled mentor/guide to Sam and Tara’s friends as they try to solve this latest killing spree. Gal does show up around when Dewey does and plays a similar role to Carrie Fisher’s General Leia in Star Wars Episode VII. Okay, so Sidney has more to do than silently stand on a cliffside right before the credits roll, but the former Luke Skywalker of this saga has no interest in being the star this time around. While Scream isn’t the first sequel to essentially go “Hey, we’re doing The Force Awakens,” the formula does ensure that this new film mostly keeps our new heroine and her kid sister as stars in their own journey.  

Without going into which characters live or die, the spotlight begins and ends on the new cast of kooky kids, including Mason Gooding and Brown as siblings, Mikey Madison as Tara’s quirky best pal and Dylan Minnette as Sheriff Hicks’ son. Slight spoiler, but a new adult character played by genre vet Kyle Gallner is dispatched so quickly that it almost feels like a prank, or possibly a commentary on what demographics matter this time out. While the second act does take a comparative detour where the vets briefly take center stage, most of the movie focuses not on Sidney but on Sam. That’s essential if this film is intended to kick-start more Scream movies. Moreover, this emphasis frankly what separates the legacy sequels, with an exception here and there, that work from the ones that don’t. 

Disney was able to successfully sell The Force Awakens with a campaign almost entirely focused on the newbies (Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver), while Creed was an Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) drama first and Rocky 7 second. Even Ghostbusters: Afterlife kept the focus on Mckenna Grace’s Callie Spengler and her fractured family, limiting the franchise vets to a last-minute cameo even as the film slowly devolved into a Ghostbusters remake. Jurassic World and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle had minimal in-continuity connections to their predecessors, telling new stories with new characters that worked whether you cared about the IP. Conversely, Halloween kept the focus on Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, which became a problem (however commercially irrelevant) for Halloween Kills when Strode was bedridden and none of the newbies were able to take over.  

Terminator: Dark Fate wanted to be Force Awakens, just as Terminator Genisys wanted to be Star Trek. However, putting aside that Star Wars is a much bigger property than Terminator, the Tim Miller-directed sequel never let Mackenzie Davis and Natalyia Reyes become the stars, with Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger lording over the proceedings. Likewise, Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day: Resurgence absolutely did not get audiences invested, both in pre-release marketing or the movie itself, in the journeys of Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe and Jessie Usher, instead making a loose remake of Independence Day which again starred Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum with a giant hole where Will Smith was “supposed” to be. Even Matrix Resurrections, which was admittedly less franchise-restart than epilogue, made little effort to flesh out its newbies (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jessica Henwick).  

Yes, budgets matter. If Scream gets anywhere near The Matrix Resurrections’ $140 million global cume, it’ll be a huge hit on a $24 million budget. Ghostbusters: Afterlife can be okay with a $195 million cume on a $75 million budget. Terminator: Dark Fate cost $180 million while Halloween cost $10 million, so their near identical grosses ($262 million in 2019 and $255 million in 2018) means one franchise finally gives up while the other thrives anew. In terms of long-term viability, the key to keeping these franchises around is getting fans young and old invested not just in the continuing adventures of the franchise vets but in the next generation of protagonists. Franchise nostalgia helped turn Creed into a hit ($173 million), but audience investment in Adonis Creed helped make Creed II an even bigger hit ($215 million). 

The Force Awakens turned Rey, Finn, Kylo and Poe into marquee characters unto themselves, and part of Star Wars’ current problem is the extent to which The Rise of Skywalker undercut their value as ongoing characters. One big problem with the newfangled X-Men revamp is how the films couldn’t stop reverting to “Magneto and Xavier argue and Magneto lifts something heavy,” which left the franchise’s “new” versions of Scott Summers, Storm and Jean Grey woefully unable to anchor Dark Phoenix. If we get a Ghostbusters: Afterlife sequel, it’ll be one even more about Phoebe Spengler and (hopefully) one less tied to franchise-specific nostalgia, just as Jurassic World: Lost Kingdom blew up the original island and stuck its heroes (Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard) and dinosaurs in a glorified haunted house movie for the third act.  

That Michael B. Jordan is directing Creed III with (as of now) not even a cameo from Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa is a sign of successful franchise evolution. We just got a $1.7 billion-grossing Spider-Man movie which is all about the non-MCU Spider-Man franchises and ends with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker cut out of the MCU continuity. The pool hook of Jurassic World: Dominion is predicated not just on the return of Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern but the theoretical value of seeing those specific folks bumping up against Pratt and Howard. If Scream’s focus on Sam, Tara and their quirky (and refreshingly diverse) peer groups pays off, it’ll mean Scream 6 will be even less contingent on whether the franchise elders want to show up again. That should be the goal of every legacy sequel.