Good news for Scream fans coming in today - 'Scream: The Inside Story', the Dan Farrands-directed Scream documentary for A&E's BIO Channel, now has a confirmed airdate of Wednesday, April 6th, with repeats later that night and during the early morning hours on Thursday, April 7th. Check your local listings for the exact times.
Synopsis:In 1996 director Wes Craven unleashed Scream, a slasher flick that shattered box-office records for horror films and turned Craven and some hot young actors (Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, and Rose McGowan) into overnight stars. In this two-hour special, we go inside the Scream story with all-new, exclusive interviews with cast and crew. Viewers will learn that Craven originally didn't want to direct the film, the production had to survive delays and objections to its violent content, and industry analysts predicted it would be bomb at the box office. But Scream became a blockbuster and single-handedly revived the horror genre.
In a recent interview with HelloSidney.com Farrands discusses the challenges he faced putting the documentary together:'The biggest challenge in terms of acquiring material was that the ownership of the SCREAM films is extremely convoluted, and this was compounded by the fact that while we were in production, the entire Miramax library was being sold off by its then-owners (The Walt Disney Company, no less) to a new group of investors. It literally took months of sitting back and waiting to see how and if the sale of Miramax was going to be handled. And it took several more months of waiting, back and forth communicating, and finally negotiating with the new owners to get permission to use the film footage and archival materials. And all of this while we were on a pretty tight deadline to deliver the show to BIO Channel. It was a big leap of faith to even start the show knowing that any time the house of cards could have toppled. Fortunately, the new owners of Miramax really loved what we were doing and made it possible for us to have access to all of the materials that we needed.'
As for the message the doc relays and how the original Scream impacted him personally, Farrands shares the following:'I'm not sure what kind of message it sends, but it certainly tells the most complete story of the making of the original film. We touch on the sequels, including the genesis of SCREAM 4, but it's really the story of a struggling screenwriter, a director in need of a hit, and a maverick studio who came together to create cinematic history. It's a very respectful and in a way nostalgic look back at a horror film that came out of the blue and took everyone by storm.'
'SCREAM came around right as I was embarking on my own career as a filmmaker, and certainly its success opened doors for me (and people like me) to be able to sell projects in a genre we loved. I remember that after SCREAM became a hit, everyone in town wanted to hear horror pitches, and I suddenly felt like I was riding that wave. I sold several projects, some of them right in a studio executive's office, because suddenly horror was 'hot' again. Had it not been for SCREAM, I'm not sure some of those opportunities would have existed.Going into this project right on the heels of our epic NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET retrospective (NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: THE ELM STREET LEGACY), there was already a familiarity with Wes and a certain level of comfort with the form. We knew what worked from that show and what fans seemed to respond to, so even though this one was different in that it needed to fit the format of an existing documentary series for television, we really tried to bring to the table as many of the cool elements from NEVER SLEEP AGAIN as we could.'
Click here for the BIO Channel's overview of 'Scream: The Inside Story', 'like' 'Scream: The Inside Story' on Facebook, and then turn out the lights, brush up on the rules of horror movies, and get ready to 'Scream' all over again!
Make sure to check out our SCREAM 4 Coverage.
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