The studio wanted more quickly after the success of Wes Craven’s Scream in December 1996. In order to meet the December 1997 release deadline, Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson had to create and produce the sequel very quickly. Given the quick turnaround, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff wanted to know who or what changed the most during the process when speaking with Williamson for the 25th anniversary of Scream 2. Williamson recalls specific adjustments he was requested to make to Cotton Weary during his discussion of how the movie’s conclusion changed. Williamson opposed the alterations, and Liev Schreiber disagreed with them as well.
In the original movie, the catalyst for the entire Scream franchise began with a scapegoat. Cotton Weary was framed by Sidney Prescott’s (Neve Campbell) boyfriend, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), and friend, Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), for the murder of Sidney’s mother, Maureen, who Cotton was secretly involved with. With Sidney as an eyewitness, Cotton was wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death, and spent at least a year behind bars before being exonerated of the crime.
With the movie becoming such a hit, the studio immediately wanted to cash in on a sequel. Because of the timeframe that Williamson was given, and because he was simultaneously writing for the hit series, Dawson’s Creek, the writer said working on the script for Scream 2 “was a nightmare. That whole year was a blur.” And that’s without even considering the mayhem of the script leaks. According to Williamson, much of what he originally wrote was being altered during production, explaining:
