Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, aka Radio Silence, made a name for themselves with the excellent 2019 original horror hit, “Ready or Not.” From there, as they say, the horror world was their gory little oyster. So, what did the up-and-coming team decide to take on next? A “Ready or Not” sequel? Hogwash! It turns out that the duo was basically gifted a much more enticing prospect in the form of a “Scream” sequel — the first that wouldn’t involve the late Wes Craven.
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“Jamie Vanderbilt, who is one of the writers, him and his producing partners, Paul [Neinstein] and William [Sherak] over at Project X, they got the opportunity to, along with Spyglass, produce the next ‘Scream.’ Gillett said. “From what we’ve been told is that as soon as that opportunity presented itself, Jamie basically raised his hand and said,’ I want to write it. I was these guys [Radio Silence] to direct it, I want my friend Guy Busick, who wrote ‘Ready or Not,’ our previous movie, I want him to write it with me. Let’s go! And that’s basically what happened.”
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But the team of Radio Silence wasn’t immediately on board, as they aren’t particularly fond of most horror sequels.
“We have a real aversion to sequels, and we make fun of them a lot.” Bettinelli shared. “But it’s what was so fun about making this because it’s like we’re not outside of it telling people ‘Nah!’ on a soapbox. We’re in this conversation. We are a part of it as fans. So, when we found out about it, we knew Jamie was a wonderful writer, we knew Guy was a wonderful writer, so we had a lot of faith in it. I think we had nerves just in terms of, ‘Do you want to step into this thing that’s almost a sure-fire underwhelming experience?’ Like nine out of ten times, it’s going to be, ‘Well, the one that’s not as good as the other ones.’ You never want to be the outlier. And especially because it’s movies we love and don’t want to ruin that legacy. It just matters too much. Luckily Guy and Jamie are also mega-fans, so we knew it was going to be treated with love and respect.”
And the rest, as they say, is history. “Scream” (2022) was a big hit, and the sequel was immediately greenlit when critics and fans responded positively. The duo is hard at work on breaking the story of the next “Scream” film and admitted they might even be developing another sequel when asked about their first hit, “Ready or Not.”
“Yes, hopefully — fingers crossed. It’s in development. Yeah, we’re working on it. We would love to do that. We had such a great time making that, too, and we just love that story and everyone involved, so to be able to do that again would be a treat. I mean, everyone involved is basically dead.” Gillett said. “We talk a lot about what’s our original franchise — that’s the one we just come back to time and time again that has that same ‘Scream’ DNA. I mean, look — we pitched that movie on the shoulders of ‘Scream,’ like that’s how we communicated it to the studio.”
“Scream” arrives for purchase on VOD/digital outlets today (March 1), is available March 8 on Paramount+ and Paramount Home Entertainment releases the 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD editions on April 5. With that wonderful timing on hand, you can listen to the full discussion below:
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