Trivia / Scary Movie

• Billing Displacement:
  • Go back to the main page, look at that poster, and notice the conspicuous absence of protagonist Anna Faris (the video release fixed this). She's also not helped by the credits in alphabetical order (poster and end credits) and order of appearance (rolling cast list).
  • From some of the trailers and the poster for the fifth film, you'd think Charlie Sheen was the star of the fifth film when he has only a few moments of screentime in the cold opening (along with Lindsay Lohan). Sarah Hyland is a One-Scene Wonder and Katrina Bowden a mere bit player, but both appear prominently in the poster. But probably the biggest example is Mike Tyson, who also gets featured despite only having a 30 second long cameo.
• B-Team Sequel: The first two movies were directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans. David Zucker took over for the next two installments, while Malcolm D. Lee directed the fifth one.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Brazil: Everybody in Panic ^note The Scream franchise, one of the main parodies of the first movie, is titled as "Panic" in Brazil.
  • Romania: Horror Comedy
  • Taiwan: Shriek
• Corpsing: Hanson is serving dinner and says, "Who wants a wing?", to which Dwight replies, "Yours or the turkey's?" (in reference to Hanson's miniature hand). Shorty suddenly breaks out with laughter, and you can clearly see the actors playing Ray, Buddy, Theo, and Alex laughing.
• Creator Backlash:
  • The Wayans Brothers aren't too fond of the second film, which was very hurriedly written when Dimension Films demanded a quick sequel. It came out exactly one year after the first and, notably, didn't even reach a ninety minute runtime.
  • Similarly, David Zucker has admitted that the fifth film ended up being a complete disaster.
• Cross-Cast Role: Ms. Mann, a man who dresses like a woman in order to creep on teenage girls, is played by female bodybuilder Jayne Trcka.
• Dawson Casting: Parodied, like everything else in the movies. The first film includes a scene of the main cast all cracking wise at slashed films using 20something's and even early 30 year olds playing high schoolers, by people who fit that description perfectly.
• Deleted Role: William Forsythe had a role as a psychiatrist who appeared in the alternate ending of the third film.
• Development Hell: The fifth film was in development hell for several years, with one of the potential scripts instead being turned into Superhero Movie, and a Continuity Reboot of the series being considered at one point. Scary Movie 5 was eventually released in April 2013, only to end up being so poorly received that a reboot probably will be necessary to continue the series.
• Dueling Works: For some reason, a group of other filmmakers had the same idea to make a slasher spoof around the time of the first Scary Movie, called Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th. To avoid lawsuits due to the similarities, it was delayed and released direct-to-video. Scary Movie wound up being more commercially successful, better known, and somewhat better received than Shriek.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Anna Faris is naturally a blonde. She dyed her hair black for Scary Movie so that she would more closely resemble Neve Campbell. She kept it black for the second movie, but was able to appear with her natural blond hair starting with the third movie.
• Follow the Leader: The success of the first film lead to other studios hiring Aaron Seltzer And Jason Friedberg to make a series of unrelated and very poorly received parody films (Epic Movie, Date Movie, Disaster Movie, etc) that were marketed as being made by the same people who made Scary Movie. In reality, Friedberg and Seltzer had little to do with the success of Scary Movie as they were only responsible for a very early draft that the Weinstein brothers merely bought so that rival studios couldn't make their own Scream parody. While they did ultimately get credited, the fact that they were two out of six writers credited should tell you how much they contributed.
• The Foreign Subtitle: Italy: Scary Movie: Without Fear, Without Shame... Without Brains!
• Franchise Killer: Scary Movie 5 has been panned by critics and, unlike the previous movies which hadn't been critical darlings to begin with, was a financial disaster, putting the franchise after being stuck in Development Hell out of its misery once and for all.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The theatrical cut of the first film contains dialogue during Brenda's death scene that was cut from the home video version as the film's producers felt the film's skewering of Gwyneth Paltrow (remember that Brenda was watching Shakespeare in Love) was more of an attack than in jest. The only way you can hear this dialogue is in bootlegs of the rough cut or theatrical cut.
• Lying Creator: The tagline of the first movie was "No mercy. No shame. No sequel." The tagline for the second was "We lied."
• Money, Dear Boy: In one interview, David Cross said that this was the reason he appeared in the second film, stating "I didn't do [it] for the love of cinema".
• Not Screened for Critics: The fifth film wasn't screened for critics, and they panned it once they got to see it. It has a 4% on Rotten Tomatoes, far lower than the other films' scores.
• One-Book Author: With his death in 2018, 5 was assured to be the only movie appearance made by rapper Mac Miller.
• The Other Marty:
  • Melissa Joan Hart was cast in the first film as the victim in the opening scene, going as far as doing costume tests, but was fired for an unknown reason and only learned about her firing on the drive to the airport on her way to the set. Carmen Electra was cast in her place.
  • Marlon freakin' Brando agreed to play Father McFeely in Scary Movie 2 and even began filming his scenes. Unfortunately, he was too sick to finish the role and was replaced by James Woods. To date, none of his footage has been released. Charlton Heston was also in consideration for the role before Woods.
• Recycled Set:
  • The wrecked plane set from Scary Movie 4 was originally used in the movie they were parodying, War of the Worlds (2005).
  • The Saw parody bathroom was later used by the producers of Saw III in their movie to save money, along with it being noted to be rather close to the original room.
• Sleeper Hit: Budget: $19 Million. Box Office: $278 Million, a return of more than fourteen and a half times. It debuted at #1 and while it dropped the next week thanks to the highly anticipated X-Men movie, it still continued to make money. Shawn and Marlon Waynes saw a brief career resurgence, culminating in White Chicks.
• Star-Making Role: For Anna Faris, despite being left off the original poster.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original script featured a cameo role for Jamie Lee Curtis as Cindy would discover her hiding in a closet in her house while the killer was chasing her up the stairs.
  • Jared Leto was offered to play Bobby during the early stages of casting. He eventually declined, in favor of doing Requiem for a Dream, which also starred Marlon Wayans.
  • The role of Brenda Meeks was originally offered to Aaliyah but she turned it down. Lil' Kim was also considered.
  • Alicia Silverstone turned down the role of Cindy Campbell.
  • Jenny McCarthy and Britney Spears were offered the role of Drew Decker. McCarthy turned down the role in order to instead appear in Scream 3, but would later appear as Katie in Scary Movie 3.
  • Kevin Smith was in talks to write and direct Scary Movie 3 at one point...
  • ...but then again, so were Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg. And their proposed screenplay wouldn't even have parodied horror films, but rather Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Say what you like about David Zucker's version of the film, but we probably dodged a major bullet there.
  • The original script for Scary Movie 4, focusing on superhero movies, was later filmed (albeit heavily rewritten) as Superhero Movie.
  • Brenda was originally intended as a Love Interest for Shorty, before they were rewritten as siblings.
  • There's an alternate ending to the second film where, after defeating Caine's ghost, Father McFeely shows up and reveals that Cindy is the Sole Survivor of the group who all ascend to heaven... then says he must bless the house.
  • The third film also has an extended alternate ending wherein Cody turns out to be a figment of Cindy's imagination, George turns into the Hulk to defeat the aliens (who actually are evil in this version), and Cindy goes into the Matrix to defeat Tabitha.
• Working Title: Last Summer I Screamed Because Halloween Fell On Friday The 13th.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Carmen Electra appeared in the first movie as Drew Decker, while Chris Elliot appeared in the second movie as Hanson. Both of them appeared in the fourth movie, playing the roles of Holly and Ezekiel respectively.
  • Simon Rex, Charlie Sheen, Darrell Hammond, and Molly Shannon all appeared in the fifth movie, but did not reprise their roles from the previous movies (George Logan, Tom Logan, Father Muldoon, and Marilyn respectively). In 5, they instead played the roles of Dan Sanders, Charlie Sheen, Dr. Hall, and Heather Darcy, again respectively.
  • In the Canadian French dub:
    • Martin Watier voiced Greg Phillipe in the first movie and CJ in the third and fourth ones.
    • Christine Bellier voiced Buffy Gilmore in the first movie and Theo in the second one.
    • François Sasseville voiced Doofy Gilmore in the first movie and Pierre in the fifth one.
    • Hubert Gagnon voiced Sheriff Burke in the first movie and Dr. Phil in the fourth one.
    • Gilbert Lachance voiced Dwight Hartman in the second movie, both Agent Thompson and Orpheus in the third one, and Tom Ryan in the fourth one.
    • Daniel Picard voiced Father Harris in the second movie, Tom Logan in the third and fourth ones, and Charlie Sheen in the fifth one.
    • Jacques Lavallée voiced Hanson in the second movie, Ross Giggins in the third one, and Ezekiel in the fourth one.

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