Success of ‘Scream 7’ Shows New Commercial Direction for Revitalized Paramount — but Should Sophisticated Filmgoers Be Horrified?

Amidst news that Paramount has won control of its onetime rival film studio Warner Brothers, there has been growing concern that the buyer has been short of high-grossing film series in recent times. Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible”pictures cratered, short of both ideas and thrills, and the once-successful likes of “Transformers” and “Star Trek” have both gone on indefinite hiatuses after underperforming recent instalments. Nobody will be more aware than Paramount owner David Ellison that his studio hasn’t been producing the hits and the new one he has just bought has recently been doing fine, thank you, until a bidding war erupted between Paramount and Netflix, who ultimately pulled out of the race.With recriminations still ongoing about what the merger means for the film industry, there is one piece of definite good news that Paramount will be celebrating in the last few days. The latest in the “Scream” franchise, the imaginatively named “Scream 7,” has overcome poor reviews to have comfortably the highest-grossing opening weekend of any of the films in the series. Originally forecast to open to a so-so mid-$30 million, it ended up tapping into a pent-up desire on the part of audiences to watch young people being killed in new and innovative ways. “Scream 7” ended up grossing over $97 million worldwide, two thirds of which was earned in the USA.Continued interest in the franchise, which celebrates its thirtieth birthday this year, has coincided with the return of original screenwriter and creator Kevin Williamson to the series. He has also been promoted to director this time around, making his sophomore picture after the misfiring 1999 black comedy “Teaching Mrs Tingle.” Many of Mr. Williamson’s screenplays for the “Scream” films have attempted to combine meta-black comedy with nods at social awareness – “Scream 2,” for instance, features one of its post-Tarantino murderers announcing his intention of claiming that cinematic violence led him to commit his atrocities – and so it’s no surprise that “Scream 7” features similarly on-the-nose associations.Here, the killer(s) wreak their havoc in association with AI and deepfake technology, which allows for guest appearances from various well-known faces who have appeared in earlier pictures, including one of Mr. Tarantino’s least favorite actors Matthew Lillard, reprising his role as original murderer Stu, and David Arquette returning from beyond the grave as much-loved, much-stabbed neighborhood cop Dewey. All of this makes for clever-clever, decidedly meta filmmaking. It begins with characters who are fans of the “Stab” franchise — the film’s fictional send-up of itself — going on a pilgrimage to one of the sites featured in the first picture. Of course, violence and mayhem ensue.The “Scream films” have long since abandoned any pretence of subtlety, and while the return of Neve Campbell in her signature role of Sydney Prescott — a part that she didn’t play in the previous film after an argument over money — will keep the franchise faithful happy, in truth, whoever plays the central part will play second fiddle to the Munch-masked, black-robed Ghostface killer, knife forever held aloft. It is amusing that there will be an audience for whom Courtney Cox is more closely associated with these pictures than the role of Monica Geller in “Friends,” given that she is the only actor to have appeared in every one of these films, but Ms. Cox does everything required of her with a certain grim-faced panache as Gail Weathers, the hard-bitten journalist who always comes out on top.Neve Campbell in ‘Scream 7’ Paramount Pictures“Scream 7” also comfortably saw off a mooted anti-Israeli boycott over the firing of Melissa Barrera, who had acted in the franchise’s last two films, from the seventh instalment for resharing inflammatory social media messages over the war in Gaza, including a post that accused Israel of “genocide and ethnic cleansing.”The reason why critics have wearied of the “Scream” series – just as they disliked the parallel parody franchise, “Scary Movie,” which is also distributed by Paramount – is that the films have long ago given up on genuine originality and quirkiness to become a sarcastic but equally gruesome teen slasher phenomenon. Williamson’s screenplays might have all the snark and allusion of the earlier pictures, but crucially the heart and soul that made them so appealing has long since vanished. Still, audiences are not out looking for sensitivity or intelligence. They want to see people’s intestines being ripped out with knives, and that is exactly what “Scream 7” delivers. Many other rival horror franchises, including “Halloween,” “Nightmare on Elm Street,” and “The Exorcist” have long since sputtered out, either because of over-familiarity or irrelevance. While the less gory “Conjuring” series has been hugely successful – and Paramount will now own the Warner Bros-produced films as part of its new library – it does not cater to the same rapacious audience as those who have turned up in their millions for “Scream 7,” who will be eagerly hoping “Scream 8” appears before very long. To keep them going, there’s another “Scary Movie” coming this summer, presumably after Paramount have completed their Warner acquisition.Violence with a side order of comedy, comedy with a side order of violence: even as cinemagoers might think that the desecration of the industry is more horrific than anything on screen, you can bet your bottom dollar that the next one will be a hit. There’s no doubt that it’s still Ghostface’s world, and all we can do is die in it. Paramount must be delighted.

Success of ‘Scream 7’ Shows New Commercial Direction for Revitalized Paramount — but Should Sophisticated Filmgoers Be Horrified?

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