Perhaps it’s because the original Scream is my second favorite movie of all time, but I can’t imagine a more exciting opportunity than directing a new installment of that franchise. Pre-Scream, the filmmaking collective, Radio Silence, was widely known for its downright brilliant blend of horror and dark comedy in 2019’s Ready or Not. But scoring the Scream opportunity wasn’t as simple as whipping up an A+ violent twist on the game hide-and-seek and then riding that wave to dream gigs. The group, consisting of producer Chad Villella and directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, not only had to pay their dues, but they had to do so while holding tight to their voice, approach to their work, and creative goals.
Their new Scream movie, penned by James Vanderbilt and their Ready or Not scribe Guy Busick, sees the return of the original three — Neve Campbell’s Sidney, Courteney Cox’s Gale, and David Arquette’s Dewey. When Ghostface returns to Woodsboro to pick off more victims, the trio steps in to put a stop to yet another round of killings.
I had the pleasure of chatting with Villella, Gillett, and Bettinelli-Olpin, and, yes, we did get into a ton of Scream 2022 spoilers, but the first 15 minutes of the conversation were dedicated to putting the spotlight on Radio Silence -- how the group came together, how it got its name and how the trio has evolved and thrived along the way.
Villella began by pinpointing the quality of their collaboration that signaled they were a team that could go this distance. “We loved the creative debate that we always had amongst the three of us, and it was always challenging each other to find better or more creative solutions to any problems that came up.” Before they were Radio Silence, they were making content as Chad, Matt & Rob, a team of filmmakers making shorts and publishing them on YouTube. They’re operating on a different level now, but Gillett stressed that that approach to solving problems hasn't changed; “There's this level of naive ambition where it's like, ‘Oh, we have a cool idea. Let's just figure out a way to do it.’” He also added:
“I think for us that feeling of when inspiration and ambition kind of intersect, and the level of excitement that there is around that, and it's like, ‘Oh, sh*t. We have to just figure out a way to do this. We will hate ourselves if we don't achieve this thing.’ And then the fun is just figuring out a way to do that with the resources you have. Sometimes you have more, sometimes you have less. And I think that's really been the same for us from day one.”
Villella noted that Ready or Not was a rather significant production completed in a very short amount of time. The only way they could make it work? By tapping back into how they approached their films when they first started, by using that “naive ambition” to see their vision through to fruition. And it turns out, that same tactic came in handy on Scream as well, and you can even see the trio putting those methods to use on screen in the final film. Villella recalled:
“Even on Scream, when we have some of the best department heads in the world working around us, there were still moments when we had to go back, and one of the Easter eggs that we'll talk about is the Michael Myers shot in Scream is actually Matt with a knife with Tyler holding a camera and me holding my iPhone and lighting him up from behind, underneath.”
Thus far we’ve covered their leap from YouTube shorts to the smash hit Ready or Not and making a Scream movie, but the team did hit a pretty significant bump in the road in between, a bump they say put them in “directors jail.” That bump is Devil’s Due, a found footage horror movie that wasn’t received especially well when it hit theaters in January 2014. Gillett looked back:
“We got this big break! I mean, we were gonna make a studio movie and that was the most exciting thing in the world. I remember literally having a conversation where we were like, ‘We're getting the opportunity to make a studio movie.’ Just take everything out of it. Just to have had that experience as a movie fan is just incredible. And then to have it not be embraced with open arms, as you so kindly put it, I think it toughened us in a lot of ways. Our next movie after that was Southbound and it was this nice back-to-basics thing. ‘Director's jail’ is very real, no matter what anybody says. [Laughs] We weren’t making another studio movie and we had to go prove ourselves again."
There’s a reason why I often ask about overcoming challenges in interviews; there can be invaluable lessons learned from them, lessons one might not have learned if everything went exactly according to plan. In addition to toughening Radio Silence in many ways, the Devil’s Due experience also connected them with the filmmakers who would ultimately help them make Ready or Not and Scream. Gillett continued:
“You never know in the moment what the outcome will be in the future. We found out on Ready or Not that the reason Tripp [Vinson] and Jamie hired us to direct that movie is they loved Devil's Due. And they called the studio and asked how were we to work with, and everyone that we worked with, these people that I told you we have really close relationships with to this day were like, ‘They're incredible. You should absolutely work with them.’ And we never thought in a million years that Devil's Due would be responsible for us getting to be involved in one of the greatest projects I think we'll probably ever work on, Ready or Not.”
And without Ready or Not? Bettinelli-Olpin insisted they’d never have made Scream. Not only does their new Scream movie have a 77% on the Tomatometer, an 83% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and an impressive opening weekend total at the box office, but the movie has also been praised as an especially loving Scream sequel that celebrates the franchise and its fanbase. I've said as much myself, and it's a quality of the movie that truly means the world to me. With that in mind, it’s only natural to be greedy and hope Radio Silence makes Scream movies for years to come. But they’re also especially skilled at bringing wildly inventive original stories to screen. So what’s the priority after Scream's success? Is it to continue on with the franchise or to shake things up and do something different? Here’s what Gillett said:
“I think I can say that we love both ideas and I think we want to pursue both things. We have a bunch of really fun, original things that we're working on. We know that there's been a conversation about Ready or Not. We certainly know that Guy and Jamie have amazing ideas about where Scream could go after this last one. We just want to be involved in all of it. I think once you've had an experience with people that really changes you, not only creatively, but fills your heart up and fulfills you, really, in ways that I think we all never thought we would be fulfilled, you just want to replicate that as many times as possible. And so I know we'll have a ton of really amazing stuff with Guy and Jamie and William [Sherak] and Paul [Neinstein], the Project X team. I think we've got a lot of really fun, original stuff coming up as well. So I think a bit of all of it. But this was a unique challenge and I think it scratched an itch we don't know we had, and I think it'll continue to itch. So hopefully there's more.”
Still wondering how Radio Silence got its name? We’ve got your answer right here and for anyone who’s ever tried to get a film off the ground, or take a set forward in any line of work for that matter, the meaning behind the name rocks an inspiring charm you won’t soon forget. Bettinelli-Olpin explained:
“When we were just getting going, again, kind of to your previous question, we were like, ‘We want to aim for the highest thing and then see how far we get and have fun along the way and hope for the best.’ And so once we started doing some smaller stuff, we'd have meetings, and that was really exciting because we felt like we were getting our foot in the door and we were like, ‘This is so cool.’ And then for weeks after it'd be like, ‘Hey, what happened with that meeting? Radio silence!’ And we would say it all the time to each other, ‘Radio silence.’ ‘Hey, we sent that script to so-and-so. Radio silence!” And then when V/H/S got into Sundance, and we were lucky enough to be riding those coattails, Brad Miska of Bloody Disgusting was like, ‘Well, so who's the director and who's coming to Sundance?’ And again, we were like, ‘Well, we all want to go. Let's just make up a name.’ And it was three minutes of, ‘What should we call it? Radio Silence. Great. Cool. Yeah, so we're called Radio Silence.’ And that was it.”
Now that you’ve had your Radio Silence 101, are you ready for some Scream spoiler talk? Check out our full 45-minute conversation in the video at the top of this article! Spoilers for Scream 2022 begin at the 17-minute mark.