David Arquette takes responsibility for Courteney Cox’s Scream 3 bangs

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

SCREAM 3 is known for many things. It was supposed to be the final entry of the franchise but that proved to be false with the release of SCREAM 4 in 2011 and the upcoming SCREAM 5 which begins shooting soon. The film is known for not being as good as its predecessors but another detail about the film that has had fans talking since the movie was released in 2000 was the now-infamous bangs sported by Courteney Cox, who plays Gail Weathers in the popular horror franchise. The bangs have gotten their fair share of criticism over the years and now we know who to blame for their existence.

In a new interview, David Arquette, who plays Dewey Riley in the franchise and was married to Cox at the time, talked about the origin of the bangs in SCREAM 3 and admitted that it was all his idea. Cox stated that she wanted to have a different hairstyle in each movie, which meant she needed some ideas and Arquette provided her with the styling tip that went wrong:

"The bangs were my fault. I have to admit, I was like, 'Oh, you should do a like, Bettie Page thing, you know, just like, a little. That was my fault. Totally, I'll take full responsibility. I mean they're, you know, a professional hairdresser's fault of course. And they didn't really do Bettie Page kind of really blunt bangs. Like, that's what the idea was. They tried to mess with them. You can't. You have to go fully in. You can't, like, halfway those kinds of things."

Courteney Cox does sport a different hairstyle across the four SCREAM films that have been released and I'd say the red-streak look in SCREAM 2 and her style in SCREAM 4 were probably the best. The SCREAM 3 bangs were indeed a disaster and if they were going for Bettie Page, they failed. The hair practically looks dead on the ends and bangs look like a mere afterthought and the fact that fans have debated them over the years shows just how bad of a look they actually were. Courteney Cox herself has addressed the bangs before by saying "The fact that people say, 'forever on film,' that is really true and it's so bad. I had these bangs and they were cut too short. At that time in my life, I wasn't the kind of person who would say, 'You know what? These are too short. We need to get new bangs." To her credit, Cox has been a good sport over the years about the bangs, even posting the following video poking fun at herself below:

Cox's bangs aren't the only thing that Arquette thinks were lacking in SCREAM 3. The actor went on to say that the third film is his least favorite of the franchise, mostly because a lot of what the story was intended to be changed a lot during filming. The actor says "We had to throw the script out at the beginning. They were rewriting the whole time. We’d get pages like on the day of shooting. It was just kind of all over the place. It’s interesting and it’s funny but it’s a different tone from the rest."

Courteney Cox and David Arquette are reteaming for the next SCREAM film but given that the pair are no longer together in real life, I doubt Cox will be taking hair advice from Arquette anytime soon. That being said, Arquette said they co-parent their daughter wonderfully together and they also enjoy working together:

"Well, we co-parent. So, we're in touch quite a bit. It's great, but we always love working together… It'll be fun to bring these characters back to life and see where they're at… Costarring's the easy part."

Should Courteney Cox bring back the iconic SCREAM 3 bangs for the next installment?