It’s been knowledge for awhile that Dimension and The Weinstein Company have been prepping Scary Movie 5, going so far as to announce an official release date, because it’s become the hip thing to force movies onto a release date no matter what. But now there is progress being made on the Scary Movie 5 front, at least when it comes to the script; Bloody Disgusting reports that Dimension has hired Stephen Leff, John Aboud, and Michael Colton to write the next installment.
Aboud and Colton both have story credit on 2007’s sports movie spoof The Comebacks while Leff’was one of the writers for the 2000 animated series Teacher’s Pet, as well as the 2001-2002 TV series Off-Centre which starred Eddie Kaye Thomas. Not exactly a crack writing staff, but there is some spoof experience present at least and The Comebacks could have been a lot worse than it was (it was still bad, but still leagues ahead of crap like Plump Fiction and The 40 Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It).
With the Scary Movie franchise having a bit of continuity, it’s also no surprise that Dimension is looking to bring back some of the actors and actresses from previous installments. Sources told BD that the studio is hoping to get Regina Hall, Anthony Anderson, and Kevin Hart all back for number 5. Anderson and Hart have been involved since Scary Movie 3, while Hall is been in all four as the character of Brenda Meeks, the best friend of Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris). I honestly doubt that Dimension won’t be able to land these three for this movie, as their careers aren’t exactly on fire, but bringing back Faris may prove a bigger obstacle since she’s got a bit more going on for her nowadays (or at least gets more work than the other three).
Expect Dimension to throw a giant wad of money at her though, because without Faris Scary Movie 5 just won’t be the same. She’s the central character and needs to be there, and yes I like the series enough to admit that I’d be ticked if she didn’t come back. There’s also no word on if David Zucker will return for a third time to direct, but like BD’s Mr. Digusting, I hope he doesn’t. It needs someone new running the ship.
Look people, Scary Movie 5 is happening and it’s best to make your peace with it. While I wouldn’t stay this is a “must-see” or anything, I am partially excited as a spoof fan; in the current age where Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer repeatedly give spoofs a bad name, at least the Scary Movie franchise actually has legitimate jokes and not pop culture references that are “funny” because people know what they are. In the modern spoof environment, Scary Movie is king by proxy.
Scary Movie 5 will hit theaters April 20th, 2012 barring any production difficulties.
Will someone else besides me stick up for the Scary Movie franchise? Please? It’s so lonely.