The Wayans Brothers Are Returning For A New 'Scary Movie'
The Wayans Brothers Are Returning For A New 'Scary Movie'
They’re brothers, they’re happy to be writing and they’re colored. Give them a high five!
Horror’s back in a big way, and it seems it’s time to have fun again, because so is the biggest horror parody franchise, Scary Movie, as announced at CinemaCon in April. And with disgraced rapist Harvey Weinstein long gone from Miramax (which is now under Paramount), the franchise returned to its creators, the Wayans brothers Keenen Ivory, Shawn, and Marlon, the latter of whom announced such Tuesday.
"WE'RE BACK!!! After nearly 20 years, the Wayans brothers are finally going to give the fans what they've been asking for… a return to the SCARY MOVIE franchise! We’re looking forward to having fun on the big screen again.” The Wayans and Rick Alvarez are writing and producing the movie, which will shoot next year for a theatrical release. The announcement came with Wayans posing with the franchise’s Ghostface parody. A more joint statement made with the involved brothers says Marlon, Shawn and Keenen Wayans told us, “We couldn’t be more excited to be a part of the new Scary Movie and work with each other again. This is a franchise we created more than 20 years ago. We remember people laughing in the aisles and hope to see that happen again. We look forward to working with Jonathan Glickman and his team at the new Miramax to bring these laughs to theaters, where they belong. It’s a double reunion.”
Glickman, the CEO of Miramax since shortly before this year’s CinemaCon, excitedly declared, “We are thrilled to reunite Scary Movie with the Wayans brothers, the brilliant creators behind the beloved franchise. The timing is perfect to bring back the series to the big screen and we’re lucky to have Keenen, Marlon and Shawn’s unique comedic vision bringing it to audiences around the world.”
David Gordon Green’s 2018 Halloween movie brought a new wave of horror movie franchise installments for Candyman, The Exorcist, The Omen and others after long absences, a return very fruitful for Scream with not just one but three additional films. I Know What You Did Last Summer is getting its own similar continuation set to be released July of next year. The original Scary Movie, directed by Keenen and co-written by him, Shawn and Marlon as well as Buddy Johnson, made Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer the primary parody targets, so it only makes sense that their returns get a taste of satire. Even with these undying franchises the last decade, there’s also plenty of newer horror IP. Terrifier could probably get in there. Would it be too overbaked for the un-Disneyfied public domain horror like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey or The Mouse Trap to get a shallow “This exists so we’re throwing it in there” gag these movies liked to do?
Infamously, the Wayans Brothers were pushed out of the franchise by the third movie, which was released in 2003. Marlon would even call it an outright theft by Weinstein on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast in September, saying “The first one, we got a crappy deal, definitely. But the second one — the first one was so big, we opened to $42 million, which was unheard of… They were trying to make a deal for the second one the weekend of because they saw the track and knew it was going to be huge… We got a 20 against 20 deal, and Miramax did what they did." Subsequent sequels were released in 2006 and 2013. Alvarez wrote several of Marlon’s movies including Fifty Shades of Black, Sextuplets and Naked. Marlon will be seen starring in Justin Tipping’s psychological sports thriller HIM, produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, which releases next September.
Source: Deadline