Chatting to Collider in a brand new interview about Scream the TV series, showrunners Jill Blotevogel and Jaime Paglia have opened up about the show, where it may be headed and whether or not it will be paying homage to the original Scream franchise.
Asked about the long-term plan for the show, Blotevogel said: "We have plans in place. We have big signposts. Right now, we're talking about five or six seasons and trying to get our mind around how you would sustain that.
"We're going to use some of the things that are used in the Scream movies, like the idea of someone like Cotton Weary, who looks like they did it and gets taken away, or the idea of catching someone who's doing something bad, but it may not be our ultimate puppet master. It's definitely a very tricky game, and we're talking about different options, moving forward."
With the creation of the series also came the reveal of a brand new mask that in some ways is reminiscent of the original, but still holds its own as a unique branching out from the first three movies.
Paglia said of the new addition: "They had actually gone through probably a hundred different designs before I came on board with Jill, after they had done the pilot. The original design that they went with for the pilot didn't quite have enough of the DNA of the original mask. The story behind it was interesting, but there was the potential to do more. In asking whether we could revisit the idea of designing the mask again, it was definitely a landmine.
"I know how much time and effort everybody had put into coming up with what they had, but we came up with the idea that this kid had been going through these reconstructive surgeries, and trying to fix it and not being able to. In reality, there are these post-op surgical masks for people who have these kinds of surgeries to wear to protect them. But there's something really tragic about that, as well as potentially terrifying. So, we did our own take on that real medical technology, and we tied it into our character."
He added: "When people see that on a billboard, any Scream fan is going to say, "Oh, my god, that's Scream!" It's different. It's updated. It's not trying to adopt the old mask and not pay service to the original mythology or characters. It is its own thing, but it does evoke the same feelings for our hardcore fans."
Paglia also confirmed that the show's mask had been given the go-ahead by some big names attached to the franchise...
"We also wanted to make sure people like Wes Craven and Bob Weinstein, who really helped give birth to this whole franchise, were happy with it, too. We felt hugely relieved and thrilled that when Wes, who had been skeptical about redesigning the mask, saw the new design was really excited about it, and Bob loves the new design. Hopefully, the fans out there will love it, as well."
Scream the TV series airs Tuesday nights on MTV in the US.
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