Even as director Michael Tiddes was filming the latest Scary Movie, there was an inkling that the ending would change. “The ending that’s in there now was something we came up with while shooting the movie, but we didn’t shoot it until additional photography,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “After we finished principal photography, we watched the original ending, and the new idea for the ending just kept sitting with us. We were like, ‘You know what? It would be more impactful.’”
Scary Movie, which is now in theaters, is the first installment of the comedy franchise in 25 years driven by its original creators, Shawn and Marlon Wayans. Everyone involved knew that fact would be a big part of the sequel. Plus, in that time, horror itself had changed too, so there were a bunch of new films to spoof and be inspired by. All of which meant the film’s ending had a ton of possibilities, and many were considered and shot.
In a wide-ranging interview with THR, Tiddes discussed all of that and more, including how the film’s ending changed, as well as the reason for it ending the way it does now. Read the quotes below, which are filled with spoilers.
In Scary Movie (which is really Scary Movie 6), it’s ultimately “revealed” that Ray and Shorty, two of the original cast members played by Shawn and Marlon Wayans, are the Ghostface killers. (They’re joined by Shaquille O’Neal and Anthony Anderson, too, but Ray and Shorty kill them.) Their motivation behind the killings is to get back at everyone for stealing their franchise, which is why they begrudgingly let Cindy (Anna Faris) and Brenda (Regina Hall) live too. They’re the OGs.
“Knowing the Wayans were getting their franchise back, we wanted to address the underlying issue that it was taken away from them,” Tiddes said. “So we knew the beginning and the end that we wanted, and we knew the statements we wanted to make: ‘This is our fucking franchise. We’re not giving it back to anybody now.’ It’s meta like Scream, but Scary Movie just takes it to the next level. And I think you’re right. The motivation for our Ghostfaces is probably stronger in Scary Movie 6 than it ever was in Scream. Audiences are connecting with that, and they’re loving it.”
However, an earlier cut of the film stuck closer to the new Scream installments. The younger generation was going to survive and take the reins from the originals. That was changed in additional photography, though, with Ray and Shorty tying up the younger generation of final girls and burning the house down like in the most recent Scream film, Scream 7.
“The original ending was a coda where we wrapped the characters’ stories up individually, and it just didn’t feel as effective,” Tiddes said. “We were also inspired by Scream 7’s Macher house fire, which came out while we were shooting. We’re always looking to connect the dots between the two franchises as much as possible. So we thought, ‘Wow, it would be so cool if we could incorporate the house fire.’ And a lot of effort went into finding a location that evoked the Macher house for our own house. So, with Scary Movie 6 being a story about the Wayans losing the franchise and then getting it back, it just felt like the ending would be funnier and more meta and more of a social satire if they said, ‘Fuck those kids. This is our franchise. We’re keeping it.’”
Test audiences even saw, and liked, the ending that wrapped up each individual character’s story. But they didn’t like the choice of how one specific character ended up.
“These movies are about the jokes. These movies are about shocking and surprising the audience by setting up an expectation and then subverting that expectation,” Tiddes said. “Originally, Shorty was out in the front yard for the very final moment, and the runaway rollercoaster from the beginning crashes into him and kills him. And some test audiences were a little mad that we killed Shorty. They were like, ‘Wait, what? You can’t kill Shorty.’ And I found that funny because these characters […] never really die.”
“But there was a little disappointment in the fact that we were killing Shorty, and we already felt motivation in our gut that we wanted to send the audience out on a huge laugh. You want people walking out chuckling and talking about the ending, but the original ending just didn’t do that for us.”
But wait—that’s not all. While the current ending has Shorty and Ray team up with Brenda and Cindy to leave all the kids to die, there was a Melissa Barrera joke in a previous version of the ending at one point.
“It’s out there that we did have a Melissa joke at one point in a different ending, but we decided to go back and change that ending for a variety of reasons,” Tiddes said. And yes, the interview notes that several of the characters did, in fact, die in earlier installments, and there were scenes shot to joke about that. But Scary Movie isn’t beholden to any rules.
Good news, though. Some of this might end up on the eventual home release, which you can read about in the Hollywood Reporter’s full interview. Scary Movie is now in theaters.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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