“I don’t think anyone gave ‘Scream’ a lot of credence,” Lillard said of making the 1996 original. “I mean, I don’t think anyone gave us a chance because we were coming in with a director that wasn’t necessarily young and hot. And we were coming with two television actors. And I think that we had a version of [Craven] that was humbled and happy to be there. I think that the cast, we all had an experience within that. Because we were all young, and we were all cohesive. We were like this little family for two months.”
Lillard continued, “I think that [Craven] loved that. I believe that he enjoyed that. There was no pressure on that movie to be something special. It ended up being something iconic, but at the moment, there wasn’t the pressure. I think the other three movies, certainly four now, must’ve felt [pressure] during the production, which is interesting. Right? I mean, he went from sort of this carefree moment to, by the end, I think he was miserable. I don’t think it was a secret. He was really miserable by the time he did four, in terms of the pressure to produce an iconic film.” Craven earned critical and commercial acclaim with “Scream,” but his three follow-ups never outgrossed the original’s $173 million worldwide box office haul. “Scream 2” got close with $172 million, but “Scream 3” dropped to $161 million, and “Scream 4” was the lowest earner with $97 million. The franchise’s next installment is simply titled “Scream” and comes from “Ready or Not” filmmaking duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
