The Scary Movie franchise is a hilarious series of parody/spoof horror films written and directed by the Wayan brothers, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Marlon Wayans. The brothers did an amazing job at capturing the absurd horror movie logic and making fun of it in a tasteful manner.
The Wayans’ are known for many comedy and parody/spoof films such as White Chicks, Major Payne, Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, and so many more. They are always able to appropriately make fun of odd movie tropes, plot points, and character arcs that do not always make sense in the actual films while keeping it entertaining and socially and culturally relevant.
And while the Wayans wrote, directed, and starred in the first two Scary Movies as well as the most recent sixth, they had no part in three through five and the story behind that is quite interesting.
In the late 1990s the Wayans decided they wanted to create a slasher parody of many of the popular horror films circulating including Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Urban Legend. The script was put together and pitched to Miramax who took them on to create the first Scary Movie (2000). It did fantastically and was immediately approved for a sequel, Scary Movie 2 (2001), which was also considered a commercial hit.
Due to both films’ quick and large-scale success, the Wayans expected Miramax to provide a large pay increase for the creation of the upcoming third film in the works. Though Miramax wanted to continue paying the Wayans the same amount that they had been for Scary Movie 2.
The Wayans attempted to counter this offer but the head of Miramax at the time, Harvey Weinstein, rejected said offer and fired the brothers, hiring the two thirds of Zucker, Abraham’s, and Zucker (ZAZ) in their place. ZAZ (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker) were known for their slapstick comedy films (spoofs) of the 1980s including The Kentucky Fried Movie, The Naked Gun, and Airplane! To be specific, David Zucker directed both Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4 and co-wrote the fifth, Jim Abrahams co-wrote the fourth, and Jerry Zucker took no part in the Scary Movie franchise.
In 2005 the Weinstein brothers (Harvey and Bob) left Miramax to form their own production company, The Weinstein Company , taking the Scary Movie license with them.
The Scary Movie franchise died out for a bit after the release of the fifth in 2013 due to the lack of positive intake from viewers. In 2017 Harvey Weinstein was arrested and sentenced to prison for sexual assault against multiple women and The Weinstein Company dissolved. Following that, in 2020 Paramount bought the rights to the first three Scary Movies from Miramax. Which led to the Wayans making a deal with both Paramount and Miramax in 2024 to create Scary Movie 6.
Now as someone who was raised on the Scary Movie franchise I can say I was not shocked to learn all of this information. I have always found the first two films hilarious and well thought out while three, four, and five tended to fall flat. The jokes in those three always felt less planned and semi random. They all either made sense (were culturally or socially relevant for the time in which they were released) but were not funny, or they were funny but made no sense culturally or socially.
Now, I in no way, shape, or form would call myself a movie critic. I genuinely believe the live action Cat in the Hat is the best film to ever hit theaters. But I do watch enough parody and spoof films to know that you cannot simply just have characters get hit in the junk and fart every five minutes for it to be a good one. The jokes have to be well thought out, they need to make sense to the people watching and they should preferably stick to mocking ONE genre of film and not double dip into others and they can be crass but it is important to not overdo it to the point of it becoming unnecessarily gross.
These are unfortunately important aspects to a spoof that the ZAZ and anyone else involved in Scary Movies 3,4, and 5 were simply not able to grasp. Hence why they struggled so much to keep a consistent fan-base. They relied too much on the “gross factor” (vomit, snot, and farts), inappropriate jokes (genitals, breasts and sex jokes as a whole), and celebrity cameos.
I just believe that when it comes to comedy, it is important to maintain a balance of different jokes while keeping it consistent enough throughout the films so as to not lose the fans. Because even if it was not public knowledge, people could tell when there was a shift in the Scary Movie writing room, not only due to the loss of the Wayans but also due to the loss of their timeless style of spoof and parodies. This is why they should have never gotten rid of them to begin with because, as Marlon Wayan himself said, “You can’t do Wayans sh*t without the Wayans.”
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8suoYUd/ – Marlon Wayan interview where he briefly discusses the stealing of the franchise.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8sus4r8/ – Treehouse Detective explains the process of the franchise theft in depth