Since the beginning of 2020, the film industry has been forced to adapt to a new way of life directly inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the highly infectious virus ravaged Hollywood, along with the rest of the world, production studios and movie theaters were forced to shut down for an extended period of time in hopes of combating the newfound illness. After two excruciatingly long years however, Hollywood has begun to return to their regular scheduled programming and the creative minds pushing the industry have been hard at work making up for lost time. One of the lasting impacts that has remained in place however despite how much time has passed: box office receipts, with many films being released via streaming services as opposed to movie theaters once the latter became completely impossible. We have slowly begun to see films make their way back to the box office, with one project, in theory, rivaling its predecessor’s box office success with the release of the latest Scream reboot film.
Originally debuting on the big screen in 1996, the Scream franchise details the story of a masked murderer who wreaks havoc in a small town murdering high school students. The murderer’s iconic mask is one of the most prominent forms of horror in pop culture, and the franchise continues to live on today with MTV most recently flipping the franchise into a television series in recent years. This past friday saw the latest installment of the Scream franchise, with many moviegoers flocking to theaters in hopes of reliving the 90’s nostalgia that the franchise inspires. In fact, so many moviegoers went that Scream dethroned Spider-Man: No Way Home for the first time since the latter premiered in theaters on December 27th. Scream raked in $34 million across 3,664 locations worldwide, also making it a commercial success with Paramount and Spyglass Media investing only $25 million to produce the film.
Though it may not be the most notorious horror franchise, Scream is certainly an integral piece of the genre’s DNA. The slasher flick franchise has permeated pop culture for over a quarter of a century now, with many of us dressing up as the masked killer for Halloween when we were younger. Now those of us who did exactly that and the countless others who remember the iconic franchise will get the chance to relive the nostalgia once more with the latest installment of Scream, in theaters now.
