Scream 7 might not be the most critically acclaimed entry in the popular horror franchise, but the return of Sydney Prescott has roared onto the scene with its opening weekend, all the same. As it stands, Ghostface’s latest sequel has had the biggest opening weekend of the Scream series, raking in over $97 million USD worldwide. While this can be attributed to many different factors, the return of Matthew Lillard’s Stu Macher might be one of them. In a recent interview, Scream 7 director Kevin Williamson hinted at an alternate ending to the film that might have shaken the horror series to its core.
Warning. If you have yet to see Scream 7 in theaters and don’t want to be spoiled, be forewarned that we’ll be diving into spoiler territory. As those who saw Ghostface’s latest reign of terror know, Lillard’s Stu, one of the killers of the first film, made a wild return. While not returning from the grave, Lillard returned to the role all the same, thanks to the real killers using artificial intelligence to pretend to be him. In a new interview with Esquire, Williamson discussed the plot twist when it came to Macher’s return, “We wanted to have our cake and eat it too. I wish I could take credit for that. But Guy Busick had that in his script. He wrote all the AI stuff. The first time I read it, I was like, “How is this going to work? How is he going to be alive?” Furthermore, if it is AI, will part of the audience be disappointed that he’s not real? We were playing that game. And I’d be lying if I said we didn’t shoot it both ways.”
The Scream 7 Ending That Was Shot
Paramount
In a surprise twist, Williamson revealed during the interview that the filmmakers had actually shot an ending that brought Stu Macher back to the land of the living. While Macher never rose from the dead, the possibility was on the table: “We shot a little coda at the end that we had in our back pocket. But oddly enough, the decision was that the audience wanted him dead.”
When Kevin mentioned that the ‘audience wanted him dead,’ he was referring to test audiences who saw this alternate ending for themselves. Based on these reactions to Scream 7, Williamson and company decided not to go through with this alternate ending, “Uh-huh. It makes more sense. It’s more real. If he’s alive, that’s a big stretch. We live in a world now where with fake AI, we know that’s possible.” In the build-up to the reveal of the true killers of the horror sequel, the Ghostfaces employed A.I. not just with Stu, but with several previous killers and victims, to play with Sydney’s head. While a Scream 8 hasn’t been confirmed as of the writing of this article, the door is now open for dead characters to make a comeback.
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