The Best Parody Movies Are Coming Back With Original Creators
Scary Movie, the brutal parody takedown of horror films from the 90s and beyond, most notably Scream, is coming back with a new installment for the first time since 2013. One of the last reboots anyone expected is getting another boost, with the return of the Wayans brothers, Marlon, Keenan Ivory, and Shawn, coming back together for the first time since Scary Movie 2. The brothers made the announcement at CinemaCon, revealing the film will start shooting in 2025.
Scary Movie Is Back
The new Scary Movie will be the sixth of the series and a return to form for the franchise under the guidance of the Wayans brothers. They started by mocking Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, and ironically, they could do the same today thanks to both slasher franchises also benefiting from recent revivals. Later installments parodied The Ring, The Haunting on Hill House, The Others, Paranormal Activity, and The Shining, among countless others.
No cast has been announced for the latest Scary Movie, but beyond the horror movie parodies, the franchise became known for its guest stars, including Shaq, Snoop Dogg, Simon Cowell, Method Man, Jenny McCarthy, and even James Earl Jones, though the full list is an amazing time capsule of 00’s pop culture. Holding the madness together, even as the director and writers changed behind the scenes, were Anna Faris and Regina King as Cindy and Brenda, who starred in all of them except Scary Movie 5, which featured Ashley Tisdale and Simon Rex.
The Most Successful Parody Franchise Of All Time
The Scary Movie franchise was incredibly successful from the start, with the first installment earning $278 million worldwide against a budget of only $19 million. Scary Movie 5, the least successful of the series, hauled in $78 million worldwide, but the reported budget was only $20 million, so it still made a profit and, even without adjusting for inflation, did a magnitude better than Joker: Folie a Deux.
Scary Movie’s success launched a series of imitators, ranging from Epic Movie (parody of Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and other blockbuster adventures) to Disaster Movie (parody of Roland Emmerich’s filmography), and the ahead of its time Superhero Movie, which if if it came out today, could parody only Batman v. Superman and not even use all the material. None of those imitators had the comedic touch of the Wayans brothers, though, who have become a multi-generational comedy dynasty.
An Uphill Battle For Success
The entertainment landscape today is significantly different from that of 2000 when Scary Movie first hit theaters, with no genre more seriously hurt than comedies. The biggest comedies of the decade have been the rom-coms Anyone But You and No Hard Feelings, while the critical hits Palm Springs and Bottoms failed to find a wide audience. We’re even further removed from the hit parodies, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Spaceballs, so there’s no way to estimate how a new parody will do in 2025.
With the deck stacked against them, the Wayans brothers face an uphill battle to make the new Scary Movie a success, especially since current plans are to bring it to theaters first instead of streaming.
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