2022 has been quite the year for fans of the "Scream" franchise. The fifth entry in the series, "Scream," purposefully named to make fun of the current Hollywood trend of the legacy sequel, was a pleasant January horror surprise and for many, the reinvigorating spark the franchise has needed. It was successful enough that a sequel is already filming and on track for an early 2023 theatrical release.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the franchise's first sequel, "Scream 2," so Entertainment Weekly spoke to screenwriter Kevin Williamson about his approach to returning to the town of Woodsboro in 1997, how to elevate an already meta and over-the-top original film, and what he would have changed upon reflection looking back at the film as a full franchise.
Williamson had a packed run in the late '90s as the writer of the first "Scream," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," and the successful TV series "Dawson's Creek." When he returned with Horror legend Wes Craven to find the sequel's voice, they both felt that even though "Scream" was built on parody, it was still really important to raise the stakes — and so they axed Jamie Kennedy's character, Randy Meeks.
Looking back on the sequel with 25 years of distance and three more entries into the franchise, Williamson said that he would have chosen a different fate for Randy with insight. "I love Randy, I would have given him a much bigger life had I known this franchise was going to live and live," Williamson admitted. "I would have loved for him to be a legacy character."
Randy Was The Right 'Punch In The Gut'
The logic behind Randy's death is sound, after all, what's a slasher without some genuine tension? At the same time, Craven and Williamson knew ahead of time that they wanted to continue developing the franchise's core characters, so the big three were off-limits:
"I thought if you kill someone really important to the audience in the middle, it just ups the stakes. Everything's off the table. I knew we weren't going to kill Sydney, I knew we weren't going to kill Gale or Dewey. Those three characters, for 'Scream 2,' were safe, and so I had to look to the secondary characters. [...] At the time, I thought it would just be the punch in the gut the audience needed at that time, to really get mad, and get mad at the killer."
Randy is a fan-favorite character that many horror junkies quickly identified with, so it's great to know that there's a mutual amount of love coming from the screenwriter of the franchise. However, we're going to have to politely disagree with Williamson's take — there is such a thing as loving a character too much. Killing Randy off in "Scream 2" was the right call because out of all of the minor characters established at that point, he's easily the one the audience has grown the most attached to. It's difficult enough of a challenge to make a sequel that compares to the original, let alone stand on its own feet. That's where Randy's death falls into place, especially as the other, comparably beloved characters were off limits. It would have been a detriment to the film if "Scream 2" felt weightless.
Randy Meeks's Cinephile Legacy Lives On
Another reason why Randy had to make his exit is that there is a certain aura of safety in his presence as the go-to horror cinephile of the Woodsboro crew. Even though the franchise has largely stayed true to its roots as a modern parody/pastiche of the slasher genre, Randy's role in the first film saw him pointing out every horror trope and cliche that Ghostface would quickly follow in his murderous pursuits, and that the other characters needed to follow to survive.
In "Scream 2," our group of characters quickly turn to Randy for guidance once they realize Ghostface has manifested once again — his encyclopedic horror knowledge is once again a boon for their safety. Ironically, the character's hatred for horror sequels serves as foreshadowing. Due to his extremely meta knowledge of the genre, he's one of the film's very first targets, murdered right at the film's midpoints. You can feel Randy's presence and lack thereof, raising the stakes not just by offering a character of importance, but also one that had been the guiding force this entire time. When Randy Meeks dies, the training wheels for the Woodsboro gang are officially off.
While we certainly miss Randy (and probably wouldn't turn down a flashback scene at some point in the future), 2022's "Scream" did a fantastic job keeping the spirit of his character alive with the introduction of the Meeks-Martin twins. Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), are nephew and niece of everyone's favorite cinephile. Mindy inherited the movie brain, and has a few standout scenes explaining the rules of the "re-quel" legacy sequel. The pair will make their return in the next "Scream 6," so while Randy is definitively gone, his influence on the franchise is still felt.
Read this next: The Saddest Character Deaths In Horror History
The post Scream Writer Kevin Williamson Would Have Saved Randy If He Knew The Franchise Would Last This Long appeared first on /Film.
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