Mikey Madison is finally coming to terms with what she did. A few years back, the star of this year’s Oscar hopeful Anora played Amber in the fifth Scream film. In the sequel (simply titled Scream), Amber is eventually revealed to be not just one of the two Ghostface Killers, but the one who killed Dewey, David Arquette’s character from the original Scream. It was a big deal, one that Madison didn’t quite grasp at the time.
“I have to be honest, when I did the film, it sounds naive, but I wasn’t so aware of the huge fan base that the franchise has, that I’ve now been able to discover,” Madison told Collider Ladies Night. “Scream and horror fans and people who love horror films are the best people ever, but I really naively went into it.”
Only three characters—Sidney (Neve Campbell), Gale (Courteney Cox), and Dewey (Arquette)—survived the original Scream films so killing one was a huge surprise. And for it to be Dewey specifically was very impactful. He’s a character who to that point was seen as almost invincible, having survived all manner of stabbings and other attacks. It’s a quality that deeply endeared him to the audience. Fans of the trilogy took the loss hard and, apparently, some even blamed Madison.
“I remember being kind of sad because I was like, ‘Oh, such a great character. It’ll be sad to see him go.’ And then I realized afterward the heartbreak that so many people felt,” she said. “People have come up to me, and they’re like, ‘I hate that this happened. I’m mad at you.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t write the script!’ I didn’t want to do it.”
In our opinion, killing Dewey—or at least one of the legacy characters—had to happen for the Scream torch to be properly passed onto this new generation. And though that has since been fumbled around in some terrible ways (Campbell dropping out of part six, Melissa Barrera being fired from part seven, etc.), raising the stakes by killing someone important was the right call. We imagine it has to happen again soon too.
Madison can currently be seen in Anora; the Scream franchise, with Campbell and Cox returning to co-star, will be back next year.
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