Devastated but decisive, Williamson and Craven made a painful, expensive choice. With filming already underway (some scenes with the original Hallie/Derek arc had reportedly been shot), they ordered a complete page-one rewrite. Costumes, sets, and character arcs were thrown out. Hallie was rewritten as an innocent victim (brutally killed in the car crash scene), and Derek was reimagined as a heroic, tragic figure who is murdered by the new killers.
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To combat this, the script was heavily revised. According to reports from the time, many of the key scenes were rewritten, and multiple false endings were filmed to throw off the production crew and the public. Key Differences Between Script and Final Movie Devastated but decisive, Williamson and Craven made a
Just like the first movie, there was a second killer. Originally, the second killer was going to be Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber). However, after the "Derek death" scene was cut and the script was retooled, Cotton was saved for a heroic turn in Scream 3 . In some earlier versions of the draft, Mrs. Loomis (Billy’s mother) was the mastermind, but the mechanics of the ending were rewritten to give Hallie the spotlight as the sole mastermind or primary antagonist. Hallie was rewritten as an innocent victim (brutally
In the theatrical cut, Derek survives until the finale and is revealed to be an innocent victim. In the original script, Derek’s arc was a bait-and-switch.
Themes
While the original script offers a fascinating "what-if" scenario, most fans and critics agree the rewrites improved the movie. Making Derek and Hallie the killers would have repeated the "boyfriend is the killer" trope from the first film. Furthermore, killing off Gale Weathers would have destroyed the beloved romantic dynamic between her and Dewey, which sustained the franchise for decades.