Scary Movie
A shameless parody of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Matrix, and half of Hollywood, powered by Wayans-family comedy and the breakout of Anna Faris. It opened to $42.3 million — the biggest R-rated opening weekend ever at the time — and taught the 2000s that no movie was safe from a spoof.
Released by Dimension Films on July 7, 2000, Scary Movie was directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and written by (among others) Marlon and Shawn Wayans, who also starred — alongside Anna Faris, in her film debut as scream-queen Cindy, and Regina Hall as the doomed Brenda. The film cost $19 million and opened to $42.3 million, breaking Air Force One's record for the biggest opening weekend by an R-rated film, on its way to $278 million worldwide.
The success was a cultural signal: audiences wanted parody, sharp and vulgar, and the masked-killer solemnity of late-90s teen horror was ripe for it. Scary Movie 2 followed in 2001, then Scary Movie 3 in 2003, Scary Movie 4 in 2006, and Scary Movie 5 in 2013 — a franchise that kept going long after the shock wore off. Just as lasting was what it kicked off: the whole 2000s wave of "-Movie" spoof films chasing what the Wayans family had proven audiences would buy.
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