Lillard Thought 'Scream' Was 'Lame' Before It Became a Hit — SkimNews
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- Matthew Lillard told a New York Comic Con panel (via EW) that while riding home from the "Scream" set at 6 a.m. covered in blood, he told co-stars the film was "lame" and "nobody's gonna see it," while Courtney Cox returned to "Friends" and Neve Campbell went back to "Party of Five."
- Lillard had just filmed a pilot that "never went," and said "nobody could have possibly ever imagined" what the 1996 original would become — a seven-film franchise with the latest installment released earlier this year.
- Lillard played one of the two original Ghostface killers, Stuart "Stu" Macher, alongside Cox, Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, David Arquette and Drew Barrymore.
- Lillard admitted during Variety's "Know Their Lines" series that he came to resent the early-2000s "Scooby-Doo" and "Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed" films after the sequel underperformed at the box office.
- Lillard said his career "took a real nosedive for a long time" after the second "Scooby-Doo" film, adding: "I may be one of those guys from the '90s that never comes back. This movie is a love-hate relationship for me because I was like, 'It's Scooby-Doo's fault. That's why I'm not working.'"
Why it matters: The anecdote reframes one of horror's most influential franchises as a project its own cast dismissed outright, while Lillard's rare candor about blaming a family-friendly tentpole for derailing his leading-man trajectory reveals how a single sequel's box-office stumble can quietly reroute a career for a decade-plus.
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