Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven are the directors and writers of the 1997 American horror movie Scream 2. Liev Schreiber, Courteney Cox, Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laurie Metcalf, Jerry O’Connell, Jada Pinkett, Elise Neal, Jamie Kennedy, Timothy Olyphant, and Laurie Metcalf are among the actors who appear in it.
As the follow-up to the original Scream movie, Dimension Films released the sequel on December 12, 1997, less than a year later than the first. Scream 3 (2000), Scream 5 (2013), and Scream 4 (2011) were the three sequels (2022).
In Scream 2, which takes place two years after the original movie, the protagonist Sidney Prescott (played by Campbell) and other Woodsboro massacre survivors are once again followed by a copycat murderer who goes by the name of Ghostface while they are at the fictional Windsor College in Ohio. Scream 2, like its predecessor, blends slasher violence with aspects of humor, satire, and “whodunit” mystery while satirizing the film sequel cliché.
When auctioning off his original script, Williamson included a five-page concept for a sequel to Scream, intending to lure investors with the prospect of owning a franchise. Dimension proceeded with the sequel while Scream was still in cinemas, after a successful test screening and the film’s commercial and critical success, with the primary cast all coming back to the star, Craven directing, and Beltrami providing music.
Following serious concerns with plot material leaking into the Internet, revealing the identity names of the killers, the film sparked controversy. With the film’s hurried timetable, the screenplay was frequently changed; pages were sometimes produced on the day of production. Despite these flaws, Scream 2 grossed $172.4 million at the box office, just $683,362 less than the original, and garnered favorable reviews from reviewers, with some claiming that it outperformed the original in terms of quality.
To prevent the same scenario in Scream 2, Craven sought to trick the MPAA by submitting them a version of the movie that had been edited to focus on and increase the gore and violence present beyond what they wanted in the picture, including recycling a clip of Omar Epps’ character Phil Stevens was stabbed in the ear three times, instead of only once as seen in the final movie, and a prolonged scene of Randy Meeks’ murder that showed his throat being sliced.
Although some critics argued that Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer’s compositions were the most memorable ones from the movie, Beltrami garnered excellent reviews for his soundtrack for developing the musical motifs of the characters evolving in Scream. Beltrami’s original composition was replaced in the film by Zimmer’s Broken Arrow score, which was controversially utilized instead of Elfman’s expressly produced for the movie contribution. The movie’s soundtrack had a mediocre amount of commercial success and peaked at number 50 on the Billboard 200.
Where was the Scream 2 shot?
Agnes Scott College, the Ambassador Hotel, E Green Street, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Inman Hall, Kerckhoff Hall, Letitia Pate Evans Hall, McCain Library, Rialto Theatre, Royce Hall, and the Vista Theatre were among the locations used for the filming of Scream 2. Other locations were 350 S Grand Ave, 415 Portola Plaza, 5730 Busch Dr, and Agnes Scott College.
Scream 2 Filming Locations
Scream 2’s principal filming took place over nine weeks starting around mid-June 1997, on a $24 million budget. Georgia, Atlanta, and Los Angeles were chosen to represent the state of Ohio, where the fictional Windsor College had to locate in Scream 2, with most of the production taking place in Los Angeles and the remaining four weeks in Atlanta.
The opening sequence, which depicts the premiere of the fake “Stab” film, was shot over three days at Hollywood’s Vista theatre on Sunset Drive, with the outside portrayed by the Rialto theatre in South Pasadena, California. Because of the high number of extras in the sequence, full details of what happened were released onto the Internet immediately after filming wrapped, which Craven described as the production’s first encounter with a big plot leak.
Cici Cooper’s sorority houses and a neighboring party were also filmed in Pasadena, east of Los Angeles. Malibu, California, was the setting for the fictitious Stab film. Agnes Scott College, just outside Atlanta, and UCLA in Los Angeles were utilized to portray the film’s fictional Windsor College.
Following a screenplay leak during the early stages of filmmaking, security around the production was greatly enhanced, with a concentration on closed film sets and stringent limitations on what staff may be present during filming and have exposure to the script, with everyone there being asked to sign quasi agreements.
The actual script was printed again on special paper to avoid photocopying and has frequently thrown away after usage. Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is at college two years after the ‘Woodsboro murders when the fictionalized retelling of the crimes, Stab, is released.
Oh, and there have been some more murders. We appear to have drifted away from California. ‘Windsor College’ is Agnes Scott College, located at 141 East College Avenue in Decatur, Georgia, just outside Atlanta.
However, for other sites, it’s back to the west coast. The sorority home, 350 South Grand Avenue at Arbor Street in Pasadena, east of Los Angeles, is where Sidney is resting at a party when CiCi (Sarah Michelle Gellar) meets the Ghostface killer. Stab’s setting and premiere are both in California. The film-within-a-film has shot in Malibu.
The MPAA would compel them to remove the footage they did not want to keep while passing the stuff they did want, according to Craven, who reasoned that the portions of the movie they desired to maintain would be more acceptable when watched with the added violence. However, the MPAA gave Scream 2 an R-rating for the more violent version because they thought the movie’s larger message was important enough to justify the violence.
Plot Overview of Scream 2
Maureen Evans and Phil Stevens, both seniors at Windsor College, attend a special presentation of Stab, a film based on the events of the Woodsboro massacre. Phil is slain by the masked attacker known as Ghostface while briefly leaving the cinema to use the restroom. In Phil’s place, Ghostface sits by Maureen and stabs her, causing her to crawl up on stage in a scream for aid, which the crowd misidentifies as a PR stunt until she dies.
Local journalist Debbie Salt joins the news media at Windsor College, where Sidney Prescott studies with her closest friend Hallie McDaniel, her new lover Derek Feldman, fellow Woodsboro survivor Randy Meeks, and Derek’s best friend, Mickey Altieri. Dewey Riley, a police officer, shows there to provide Sidney security, and Gale Weathers, a writer, shows up to cover the story.
They are the only two Woodsboro survivors left. Gale and her new cameraman, Joel Jones, attempt in vain to manufacture a confrontation between Sidney and Cotton Weary, who is eager to earn celebrity following his acquittal in the rape and death of Sidney’s mother, Maureen Prescott. Sidney and Hallie go to a sorority house party that night. Ghostface murders student Cici Cooper at another adjacent sorority home.
Ghostface enters the house after the partygoers have left and assault Sidney. When the cops come, Ghostface injures Derek and leaves. Gale later theorizes that the new Ghostface chooses pupils with the same names as the Woodsboro murder victims after discovering Cici’s real name is Casey.
Randy suspects that the killer is someone Sidney knows and that the crimes are inspired by a movie sequel. Soon later, Dewey and Ghostface phone Gale and Randy when they are sitting on the college campus green in the daytime.
