The mystery continues. After a solid start in the ratings and the uprising of a fertile fanbase, MTV decided to renew their freshman high school summer TV series Scream, based on Wes Craven's iconic horror comedy film franchise of the same name, for a sophomore season.
The announcement was made at TCA earlier today, as reported by Deadline, followed with the announcement of Finding Carter premiering on October 2 not long after. Even though only half the first season aired so far, with the fifth episode premiering on the station just last night, the series gained a solid 1.563 million viewers during its premiere, attracts 1.03 million during live + same day views and generated 7.9 million streams across platforms. It also reels in an average of 687,000 to 997,000 viewers in its key 12-34 year old demographic.
With Craven only on board as an executive producer, more or less giving his blessing over what's created by showrunners Jill Blotevogel, Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie, this Scream liberally takes from the first movie's formula but plays around with the concept — and also develops more characters and draws out the conflict — to accommodate the length of a television series. It stars Willa Fitzgerald, Bex Taylor-Klaus, John Karna, Amadeus Serafini, Carlson Young and Connor Weil (read our recent interview with him here) as a group of high schoolers caught in the traps of a local killer slaying students one-by-one. Unlike the 1995 movie, this plays more with modern social media sites and technology platforms in relation to the murders and phone conversations.
The first episode didn't quite stick the landing, but the second showed more promise and (though I haven't seen any episodes preceding) it's likely they made the ongoing season more enjoyably twisted based on how it progressed even thus far. Although shows like Fargo helped invigorate the idea of progressing films into TV series in anthology form, it looks as though next season continues to feature the same mystery and characters introduced in this first season. That may be wrong, but there's little evidence at this point to suggest this isn't the case.
Regardless of what's expected to air, Bob Weinstein, one half of the Weinstein Company who helped produce the original movies and shepherd this series, promises "even more scares, surprises, romance and, of course, kills in season two.” So there's that to look forward to.
Image taken by Bobby Quillard, courtesy of Platform Public Relations