Scream 6 is now in theatres (you can read our review at THIS LINK), and ever since it was first announced that the movie was going to take place in New York City, fans have been jokingly referring to it as “Ghostface Takes Manhattan”, a nod to the 1989 slasher sequel Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Chad Villella confirmed that he and directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett “studied” Jason Takes Manhattan before going into production on Scream 6. And during an interview with our friends at Bloody Disgusting, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett revealed that there is an Easter egg reference to Jason Takes Manhattan in the finished film.
Villella told Entertainment Weekly, “Oh, we definitely studied it, and we wanted to make sure that we didn’t have a boat in this! We wanted to be in the city, in the lived-in part of New York, that was very important to us. Obviously, being in a city is a scary thing. With Woodsboro (the setting of most of the previous Scream movies), you’re able to be isolated very easily, but in a city, you could be surrounded by millions of people and still feel very alone. That’s exactly what we wanted to capture with this one.“
Bettinelli-Olpin told Bloody Disgusting, “We kept making jokes, obviously; from the first time we read the script, Jason Takes Manhattan was a part of the conversation. But we never had a place for it in the movie to actually call it out. Then we had a list of movies from Paramount that they owned that we could use in the movie. The second we saw that one, we were like, ‘Oh, there it is.’ It all just fell into place.“
I haven’t seen Scream 6 yet, but it’s said that the Jason Takes Manhattan Easter egg is in plain sight early on in the film.
Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, who previously directed last year’s Scream, directed Scream 6 from a screenplay by Scream 2022 writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, this one will show us what happens when the four survivors of the Ghostface killings leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter.
Those four survivors are the returning Scream 2022 characters played by Melissa Barrera (as Samantha Carpenter), Jenna Ortega (as Samantha’s sister Tara Carpenter), Mason Gooding (as Mindy’s brother Chad Meeks-Martin), and Jasmin Savoy Brown (as Mindy Meeks-Martin). They’re seeking to start a fresh chapter in New York City… but while the story is set in New York, the movie was filmed in Montreal.
Also in the cast are franchise regular Courteney Cox (as Gale Weathers), Scream 4 star Hayden Panettiere (as Kirby Reed), and new additions Dermot Mulroney as Detective Bailey, Samara Weaving as Laura, Tony Revolori as Jason, Liana Liberato as Quinn, Josh Segarra as Danny, Jack Champion as Ethan, and Devyn Nekoda as Anika. Henry Czerny is also in there, playing an unspecified role.
Notably missing is Neve Campbell, who was asked to reprise the role of franchise heroine Sidney Prescott in Scream 6, but passed on it due to a pay dispute.
Vanderbilt is producing Scream 6 with Paul Neinstein and William Sherak for Project X Entertainment. Original Scream screenwriter Kevin Willamson serves as executive producer alongside Villella, Ron Lynch, Cathy Konrad, Marianne Maddalena, and Spyglass’s Gary Barber and Peter Oillataguerre.
Have you seen Scream 6, and did you spot the Jason Takes Manhattan Easter egg? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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