In the iconic opening sequence of Wes Craven's original Scream, Drew Barrymore's character is brutally murdered by Ghostface. It's a shocking scene for a number of reasons (the E.T. actress was the biggest name in the movie at the time), and the franchise would go on to include a similar "opening kill" in all four subsequent instalments.
For 2011's Scream 4, the studio evidently wanted to go back to basics and pay homage to the first film's classic kill, offering Kristen Stewart the part of the unfortunate victim.
“So it’s the Drew [Barrymore] character that gets killed in the beginning," the Spencer star tells Slant. "And they created a whole sequence where a lot of people got killed to emulate the Drew thing. But it was just going to be one person, and I was like, 'I can’t do a Drew. I can’t touch that.' Do you know what I mean?”
When Stewart declined, the sequence was reworked to include multiple victims, including characters played by Kristen Bell and Anna Paquin.
Stewart is a big fan of the original film, and would consider coming on board for the next Scream as long as the script was right.
“Maybe. I would read the script. I love Neve Campbell so much. She was very nice to me, and it was very satisfying that she’s a very nice person. I love that movie. I’ve watched it recently, as an adult though. It’s so gnarly. I love the movie because it loves movies,” Stewart explains. “The coolest part of Scream is what it says about film. It’s so self-aware. It folds in on itself like six times. I love how much [Wes Craven] loves movies and how embedded that is. It’s a total film nerd type of movie. It’s not just a flasher flick. It’s a beautiful movie."