When MTV announced its plans to move forward with a series based on the beloved slasher film franchise, Scream, fans were left with mixed feelings. By the time the project would eventually come out, four years had passed since Scream 4 cut its way onto theater screens. And even though the cult following was excited for more Ghostface, there was a lot to be unsure about — particularly the redesigning of the killer’s iconic mask. But with franchise helmer, Wes Craven, on board with the production as an executive producer, most of us took a deep breath and gave it a shot.
Eventually airing in 2015, Scream did its own thing with characters separate from the movies from which it took its inspiration. Yes, there was a killer on the loose wearing a spooky mask, but the episodic installments gave the writers more time to develop an overarching story. Standing at the top of the call sheet and portraying Ghostface’s primary target, Willa Fitzgerald starred in Scream as Emma Duval. During a recent chat with Perri Nemiroff while swinging by Collider Ladies Night to chat about her recently released horror movie, Strange Darling, Fitzgerald broke down the specific aspects of MTV’s Scream that made it something completely fresh and new. She told Nemiroff:
“I love those movies… I think they’re so fun, and I think the show is just distinctly a very different thing. I think tonally it’s different. The stories that it’s telling are, also. I think the essence of what they kept was
this final girl who is contending with personal demons
and this external demon at the same time, and the interplay between those things, and also
the coming-of-age story that’s happening as the backdrop
to all of that. That is the consistent seed of a source material that really ties those two things together.”
Willa Fitzgerald Was Never Trying To Take Neve Campbell’s Part
When Scream jumped from the big screen to the small one, there was really only one final girl in the movies — Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott (although it could be argued that Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers is also a final girl). Even though we’ve come to love Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera as Tara and Sam Carpenter, respectively, Sidney Prescott is the alpha final girl of Scream. Never wanting to step on her legacy or trample something important to the dedicated fandom, Fitzgerald told Collider:
“I think that the show really was, obviously,
taking a leap by changing the mask
and changing these fundamental things about the franchise, but I think it was also
maybe smart in doing that
because it did make it its own thing and not just a TV version of the movies, which are great and so distinct and so clearly their own different thing. So, I feel like they knew what they were doing. Even when I was doing it, I feel like I probably had less of an understanding or awareness of that because I had seen the movies and also
I didn’t want to be trying to play Neve Campbell’s part
. I was also aware of trying to do my own thing. But yeah, divisive, I’m sure. I steered clear of any reading material that divisive.”
MTV’s Scream is available for purchase on Prime Video and Fitzgerald’s latest film, Strange Darling, is now playing in cinemas. Check out Fitzgerald’s full episode of Collider Ladies Night below.
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