Scream (1996 film)
1996 film directed by Wes Craven
Scream is a 1996 American slasher film directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson. It stars David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, and Drew Barrymore. Set in the fictional town of Woodsboro, California, the plot follows high school student Sidney Prescott (Campbell) and her friends as they become the targets of a costumed serial killer on the anniversary of her mother's murder.
Williamson, who was struggling to get his projects off the ground, was inspired by reports of the Gainesville Ripper murders to write a screenplay that satirized the clichés of the slasher genre popularized by films such as Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and Craven's own A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Developed under the title Scary Movie, the script became the subject of an intense bidding war among multiple studios before Miramax Films purchased the rights for its Dimension Films label. Although Craven initially declined the project several times, he agreed to direct after reading the script, hoping to re-establish himself following a series of career setbacks. The involvement of the well-known Barrymore and Cox helped secure additional studio support. Principal photography took place in California from April to June 1996 on a budget of $15 million. Craven also trimmed the film's violence following a dispute with the Motion Picture Association of America over securing an R rating.
Released on December 20, Scream was not expected to perform well because of concerns about releasing a slasher film during the Christmas season.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q27411. VIAF identifies the subject as 289698764. The Library of Congress control number is n97112400. 3 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 1978, 1980 and 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Scream (1996 film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.