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1. Screenwriter Kevin Williamson came up with the idea for the movie while watching a 1994 episode of ABC News' Turning Point about the serial killer dubbed the Gainesville Ripper. House-sitting at the time, Williamson was spooked when he saw a window was open that he was convinced he had closed.
2. The script caused a bidding war in Hollywood, with Dimension ultimately landing the movie. But finding a director proved to be an unexpected challenge before horror legend Wes Craven signed on after initially passing on the project.
"Every name you could imagine came up [to direct]," Williamson told The Ringer. "Wes's name came up really early. Robert Rodriguez's name came up. Quentin Tarantino's name came up."
Ultimately, it was Craven's then-assistant Julie Plec, who would go on to co-create The Vampire Diaries among other TV hits, who helped convince him to return to the genre after the filmmaker's New Nightmare failed to perform at the box office.
"At the time I was working at Wes's house, so I would have lunch with him every day. And so I said, 'Remember that great script? They're having a hard time finding a director and they really want you to do it,'" Plec recalled to The Ringer. "I was just kind of making quote-unquote innocent small talk. And he said, 'Ah, well they should just make me an offer I can't refuse then.' And I think he was joking, but I went back to [director of development] Lisa [Harrison] and I said, 'He said make him an offer he can't refuse.' And so Dimension did. And he took it."
3. The original title was Scary Movie, with the studio deciding to change it to Scream after production had wrapped, much to the creative team's initial dismay.
'[Scary Movie] was on all our wrap gifts and all our fanny packs," Plec told The Ringer. "They wanted it to be Scream and we were like, 'That's terrible.' We were all outraged. Turned out to be a good choice.