Wait… did Paramount just confirm that Stu Macher, played by the always lovable Matthew Lillard, is still alive?
Ok, so, spoilers ahead for Scream 7.
The Scream franchise has had many killers over its thirty-year history, but the one that fans still believe is out there is the aforementioned Stu. And not without good reason.
Stu, who had a TV dropped on his head (and was stabbed several times, which isn’t a death sentence in the Scream movies), was not only a fan favourite, but he’s also a killer who was originally set to return in Scream 3, when his character was set to be revealed to be orchestrating the events of that movie, however, it never happened because the events of the Columbine School shootings forced extense reshoots, although Lillard was still paid.
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On top of this, he appears in the background of Scream 2 wearing a blonde wig [“So in Scream 2 I was friends with the whole cast, and they were shooting at the Pasadena. I went to go visit, and at some point, Wes was like, in a very Wes Craven way, ‘Why don’t you just walk around in the background,’ and I was like, ‘What?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, walk through. It’ll be fun. Just walk through,'” Lillard explains, adding, “People are like, ‘Sign my Scream 2 poster,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m not in it,’ and they’re like, ‘Yes you are!'” ] and also appears in Scream 5 (he’s the Ghostface killer with a flamethrower in the trailer for the new Stab movie in-universe; yes it’s an in-joke, but still) and then, on top of that, in Scream 6, it is heavily hinted he’s still alive by the characters of Mindy and Kirby, played by Jasmin Savoy Brown and Hayden Panettiere. And, by the way, these are just the main hints. There are many more littered throughout the series.
This is something that writers Kevin Williamson, Guy Busick, and James Vanderbilt decided to capitalise on in the latest movie in the series, Scream 7, in which Lillard returns as Stu, but it’s revealed he’s an AI and not the real killer: “We wanted to have our cake and eat it too. I wish I could take credit for that. But Guy Busick had that in his script. He wrote all the AI stuff,” Williamson explains, “The first time I read it I was like, ‘How is this going to work? How is he going to be alive?’ Furthermore, if it is AI, will part of the audience be disappointed that he’s not real? We were playing that game. And I’d be lying if I said we didn’t shoot it both ways.”
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Although it leaves some threads open, hinting that Stu is still alive, despite the AI element… the unaccounted for death certificate, the fact that Lucas, played by Asa Germann, couldn’t find anything to prove the videos of Stu were, in fact, AI and even the fact that we see other AI chacters used in the movie and they’re very obvious fakes, while Stu doesn’t look fake and even has scars where he would have, had a TV been dropped on his head.
This all means that fans of Stu – Stu-believers, if you will – are now saying they don’t believe Stu is dead and that his reveal is stillcoming.
Now… Paramount themselves have added more fuel to the fire.
On the official Paramount Mexico Instagram, they shared a video of star Neve Campbell receiving a large bouquet of flowers to celebrate the success of the movie, and at the end, she holds up a card reading: ‘HE WILL BE BACK.’
Check out the video:
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This image comes on the back of Kevin Williamson admitting that at one point in the making of Scream 7, Stu was, indeed, alive: “Listen, Stu’s dead. It will make no sense whatsoever if he’s alive. And I do not want to do that to this franchise. I do not want to jump the shark in that big a way.
“I’ll jump one shark, but I’m not going to jump ten sharks,” but he goes on, “We shot a little coda at the end that we had in our back pocket. But oddly enough, the decision was that the audience wanted him dead.”
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Ok, look, I don’t necessarily believe that Williamson would be honest here, he’s not going to reveal the plot of the next movie(s) in the series, but I also can’t imagine audiences not wanting Stu to return… were they fans of the series?
But how about this, could Williamson be fibbing about the coda? Is he, perhaps, trying to gauge the online fandom’s reaction to the news that the plan was to confirm Stu is still out there? Wouldn’t that be a bit more… meta?
“I think that [‘Scream 7′] did a great job at setting up that Stu is still alive (…) they did nothing but add to the legacy that Stu is still alive,” Lillard says, agreeing with the fans who think he’s still behind the scenes.
So, what say you all? Is Stu alive? Has he been behind making Sidney’s life hell for all these years? I know you have opinions and I wanna hear ’em all.
Lillard talks about Stu’s return:
Source: Games Radar, Esquire, Games Radar
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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