Scream VI is the Sequel Fans Have Been Craving

The latest installment in the meta-horror franchise of “Scream” has opened to record box office numbers and reviews. 

On a budget of nearly $35 million, “Scream VI” saw an opening day total of $19.3 million on Friday, March 10, plus $5.7 million from Thursday, March 9 evening previews. “Scream VI” ended up raking in a grand total of $44.4 million in its opening weekend. This is nearly $20 million more than 2022’s “Scream” made during its opening weekend.

“Scream VI” continues the overall story of the “Scream” franchise, while serving as a direct sequel to 2022’s “Scream”. 

The self-referenced requel takes the story out of the fictional town of Woodsboro and moves the “core four”, the survivors of the 2022 Woodsboro killings, to New York City. Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) are trying to move on with their lives with twins Mindy and Chad Meeks as the latter three attend college at the fictional Blackmore University. Shortly after the film’s opening our Woodsboro alums are quickly contacted by Ghostface, voiced by the delightfully insidious Roger Jackson.

In May 2022, it was announced that Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, and Jenna Ortega would also return for the sixth film. Bringing Jenna back and having her as one of the bigger roles caused her fan base to blow the movie up. She was also used for advertising on TikTok, specifically where she was in her trailer on set and implied that we should go buy tickets for the movie. If the studios want to see more record breaking openings with this franchise, it would be in their best interest to lock Ortega in for “Scream VII”, and possibly beyond. They also used Billie Elishe’s song “When The Party’s Over” which got not only me, but many friends excited.

Before the release of “Scream IV”, the franchise creator Kevin Williamson claimed he had already mapped out “Scream 5” and “Scream VI”, but would wait to see the success of the next movie before signing on for any more films. In July 2014, Williamson revealed that “Scream 4” was intended to kick off a new trilogy of films, but the film “never took off in a way they hoped”. Williamson also said that he would likely not be involved in any further entries, as the series director Wes Craven and his team were “done” with him. In Williamson’s initial pitch, “Scream 5” saw Jill Roberts being stalked by a killer at her college campus, while “Scream 6” would feature Gale Weathers as the main character and deal with her relationship with Dewey Riley. While this sounds like great fan service, the direction the series ended up taking has clearly paid off.

“Scream VI” is tentatively slated for home media and digital streaming release in June 2023.