“Scary Movie ”stars, director lift the lid on that explosive 'confrontation' of a meta finale: 'Did that just happen?'

Staff AuthorSun, June 7, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC

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Marlon Wayans, Regina Hall, and Shawn Wayans in 'Scary Movie'Credit: Quantrell Colbert/Paramount PicturesKey Points -

The stars and director of Scary Movie are pulling back the curtain on that shocking finale with a meta twist.

"We knew that it was going to be this confrontation about the franchise itself. And we knew that it was going to be a culmination," co-creator, writer, and star Marlon Wayans tells EW.

"I thought it was genius," Regina Hall says. "I'm just happy to be part of this journey," Anna Faris adds. "Did that just happen?" director Michael Tiddes hopes viewers will ask themselves.

This article contains major spoilers for Scary Movie.

This was only going to end one way.

If you've had the chance to see the new Scary Movie, which arrives 13 years after the last entry in the horror parody franchise, 20 years since stars Anna Faris and Regina Hall's last appearances, and 25 years since co-creators and writers Shawn and Marlon Wayans were both involved, it may surprise you that the film was built around its shocking finale. The return of two bright stars from the franchise's past, a slew of crucial character deaths, and, most stunningly, a meta-confrontation between the core four over the very soul of Scary Movie, upend everything that came before, making for the series' most audacious climax by far.

But Faris, Hall, the Wayans, and director Michael Tiddes say it wasn't just inevitable; it was something owed to the fans.

"We knew the end. It was kind of reverse-engineered. We knew the ending, and then we knew the beginning. Then it was just about what's in the middle," Marlon notes in a conversation for Entertainment Weekly's Scary Movie cover. "We knew that it was going to be this confrontation about the franchise itself."

Twenty-five years of unspoken feelings, latent tensions, and struggles for control of the franchise were channeled directly into the (literally) fiery climax, which Tiddes hopes "is surprising to the audience, and leaves them like, 'What? Did that just happen?'"

Olivia Rose Keegan, Cameron Scott Roberts, and Savannah Lee Nassif in 'Scary Movie'Credit: Quantrell Colbert/Paramount Pictures

Coming sixth in the series' chronology but following directly from 2000's franchise kickstarter, Scary Movie briskly shakes off a quarter century of dust before it locks into what Marlon calls "the Wayans brand" of comedy, characterized by the drive to "fill the page with as many jokes as possible."

Faris' sunny Cindy Campbell has become a deadbeat mom of two (Olivia Rose Keegan and Savannah Lee Nassif) and a MAGA-fied recluse in the Halloween reboot style. Hall's Brenda Meeks loves her kids (Sydney Park and Gregg Wayans), but parents them like Ma.

That is, by throwing gonzo parties and bidding for cool points by bragging about having swum to Jeffrey Epstein's island. Marlon's Shorty Meeks is in his 25th year of high school, but has made millions as a layabout live-streamer. And Shawn's Ray Wilkins is still struggling to stay in the closet, this time turning to the church in a Sinners parody to keep him tamed.

As always happens at the start of Scream films — the franchise that 2000's and 2026's Scary Movie films take as their lodestar — the Ghostface killer turns up and ruins everything. And as with the recent glut of Scream sequels, it's the next generation that is attacked first. So it seems Cindy, Brenda, Shorty, and Ray only reunite to pass the baton to a new core four. But Marlon and Shawn fought for over two decades to regain control of the franchise (after being booted following Scary Movie 2 by Dimension Films, then under the control of Bob and Harvey Weinstein). Were they really going to win it back just to give it away?

In brief, to quote Marlon: "Hell no."

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"I remember Marlon and I and the guys talking on set about [their plans] for that ending, and if we could do it, and we were hesitant for a second. We were like, 'Well, it's their kids, you know? I mean, can we do that?'" Tiddes teases. "Throughout the filming process, it just became apparent. We would look at each other and laugh and be like, 'F--- those kids. This is our franchise. We're not giving this back.'"

The Scary Movie finale takes place at an out-of-control party at Brenda's house. After Cindy wages a John Wick-style melee against a horde of Ghostfaces, she and Brenda are shocked to discover some of their kids are behind the killings. Then everyone is shocked to discover that Ray and Shorty have actually masterminded it all. What ensues is a fourth-wall-smashing confrontation in which Marlon and Shawn seem to break character as they lay into Faris and Hall for continuing the franchise in their absence.

It's all played for laughs, with Cindy swearing she's still loyal, and Brenda copping to doing it for the money. Scary Movie 3 star Anthony Anderson and Scary Movie 4 star Shaquille O'Neal even show up as Ghostfaces, get dressing downs from Shorty and Ray, and are promptly killed. But the "f--- those kids" ethos, a phrase every actor used when discussing the finale with EW, becomes startlingly literal when the O.G. core four decide to drop their petty squabbles and focus on the real threats: their potential replacements. They proceed to trap Cindy and Brenda's kids in the house and set it on fire. The Wayans make carrying on with anyone but the original stars a narrative impossibility, as Cindy, Brenda, Shorty, and Ray gleefully walk from the flames.

Shawn points to a line when Cindy, the softest of the bunch, asks if they weren't "'too hard on the new guys?'" He laughs, "Not hard enough. F--- them kids."

Shaquille O'Neal and Phil McGraw for 'Scary Movie 4'Credit: Dimension/ Everett

Anthony Anderson and Simon Rex in 'Scary Movie 3'Credit: Dimension/ Everett

"We knew that it was going to be a culmination, because it gathered all the information from, especially [2000's Scary Movie] and [Scary Movie 2]," Marlon explains. They left the third, fourth, and fifth films "out of it because that wasn't us. So we continued the conversation with that big confrontation. That's what we leaned into, knowing specifically that we wanted to not just speak to the horror films, but to the franchise."

Marlon says it was the only way forward, given that the fans were kept front of mind. "We knew the audience deserved to hear that conversation out loud. 'What happened when the franchise was taken? How did you guys feel about that?' Anthony Anderson, him coming in and him having his perspective... We put Shaq in the movie, and we just had that conversation about our franchise. Everybody's like, 'What happened to y'all? Why would you leave?' So to be able to resolve that in that moment, to me, was, 'Oh, that's it right there. That's a great f---ing ending.'"

The new Scary Movie takes shots not just at horror history and its own history, but the current cultural landscape it's been released into. Marlon sums up the "equal opportunity offenders" approach they took to the finale this way: "It's f--- them kids, f--- the parents of these f---ing teenagers, with all the cancel culture and this and that, the them and the they, all these pronouns. Our generation's so fed up with these f---ing kids. This is our franchise."

The brutal way the film's younger generation is dispatched is meant to be hyperbolic, in line with the relentless jokes directed at each of their elders, Marlon explains. "Our goal as the Wayans is to make the world laugh, not to keep us apart." He imagines theater-goers saying to themselves, "'Man, they kill their kids? Is that their kids being f---ed up because they think that they're trying to take over the franchise? That's hilarious.'"

Anna Faris, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Regina Hall photographed exclusively for EWCredit: Isaac Anthony

How did Hall and Faris feel about hashing out their histories with the Wayans on screen? "I thought it was genius, to acknowledge it and literally bring it up to us, the two of us who were in the other movies, and still have the comedy in it," Hall says. Unlike Faris, she worked with Marlon after Scary Movie 4 in 2013's Second Generation Wayans and 2017's Naked. But there was still unfinished business.

She commends the Wayans for managing to be "able to address it and keep the lightness, because the truth is, Anna and I starred in it, but it was originally their franchise that they created... I think something about the four of them walking out was also equally great because it says, it is them now. The children burning up in the house, what's next?"

Faris tells EW that she "hadn't talked to any of the Wayans brothers since 2002." She was overjoyed to reunite with Marlon, Shawn, and all the Wayans who worked on Scary Movie. "It has been the biggest gift of my career that I've had the opportunity to properly thank them and show them that I am just in awe of them," she says. Her reaction to the subversive finale may be "much more sentimental" than her costars, "but the truth is, I'm just happy to be part of this journey. I'm really honored."

on Entertainment Weekly

Original Article on Source

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