The New 'Scream' Cast Was Given Fake Scripts To Keep The Ending A Secret

It's par for the course for any twisty horror movie to hide the true ending from cast members to keep secrets from leaking out to the public. And the new Scream might have a fair few twists, judging by the lengths the production went to keep the film's ending a secret from its cast. Producer William Sherak revealed that several members of the upcoming fifth installment in the Scream franchise still don't know the identity of the killer in their movie, due to the multiple fake scripts that were given to the cast to hide the ending.

In a recent interview with Cinema Blend, Sherak confirmed that the production team led by directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not) handed out several fake versions of the script to the cast during filming to keep the film's ending a secret:

"I think the two things to remember for us. One is there are multiple versions of the draft out there and most of the cast don't know if they have the right version or not. So, we've been playing that game with them as well. And the fun of a Scream movie is that everyone is guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around. So, the goal is to keep that going for as long as possible and have fun with it."

It's not an uncommon technique to create multiple scripts to keep cast members in the dark, especially for high-profile projects like the upcoming Scream. It was notably used by Marvel Studios for films like Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which were shot back-to-back, during which several cast members didn't even know if they would make it to the sequel.

The killer changes in every Scream film — the identity of Ghostface has been adopted by several characters to go on their bloody killing sprees. The only commonality each Ghostface shares is the desire to kill poor Syndey Prescott (Neve Campbell, returning to the franchise after 9 years). Which means it could be any of the returning cast members, which include David Arquette and Courteney Cox, or franchise newcomers Jack Quaid, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Dylan Minnette, Mason Gooding, Kyle Gallner, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mikey Madison, and Sonia Ben Ammar. Plot details aren't known yet for Scream, which is primed as a soft reboot for the franchise created by Wes Craven.

Scream is set to debut in theaters on January 14, 2022.