Wayans Brothers reunite for Scary Movie 6 – hopefully without the puerile gay jokes this time
Scary Movie 6 will reawaken the franchise. (Dimension Films)
Scary Movie 6 is officially happening, with the Wayans brothers returning to the comedy horror series after a gap of over two decades.
The Scary Movie film franchise – developed by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Keenen Ivory Wayans – is being rebooted after a 23-year break with the upcoming Scary Movie 6 rumoured to be released sometime in 2025.
The brothers are rebooting the franchise, with all three confirmed to be writers for Scary Movie 6, which poked fun at classic horror movies and parodied the slasher genre’s more stereotypical tropes.
The original Scary Movie premiered in 2000 – parodying the likes of Scream, The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Blair Witch Project – and four sequels soon followed the first instalment.
The franchise revolved around a group of teenagers who accidentally hit a pedestrian and threw his body into the lake only to be haunted by someone hunting them in a Ghostface mask.
Keenen Ivory wrote and directed the first two films. Meanwhile, Marlon and Shawn Wayans wrote for all five of the films and starred in two of them.
Marlon confirmed the news on Tuesday (29 October) posting: “WE’RE BACK!!! After nearly 20 years, the Wayans brothers are finally going to give the fans what they’ve been asking for… a return to the SCARY MOVIE franchise!”
“We’re looking forward to having fun on the big screen again.”
The Wayans brothers told Deadline: “We couldn’t be more excited to be a part of the new Scary Movie and work with each other again.
“This is a franchise we created more than 20 years ago. We remember people laughing in the aisles and hope to see that happen again.
“We look forward to working with Jonathan Glickman and his team at the new Miramax to bring these laughs to theaters, where they belong. It’s a double reunion.”
With such a large gap between the last chapter in the franchise and now, many have re-watched the films and questioned how they hold up today.
Some, including the film’s creators, have reflected on the 2000s humour which includes a number of offensive jokes aimed at the LGBTQ+ community.
With the new instalment, will gay jokes still haunt the Scary Movie franchise?
One point of conflict is the character of Ray Wilkins (played by Shawn Wayans) who is closeted. Yet, he’s written so that everyone but himself knows he’s gay.
Tired stereotypes of tight-fitting clothing and lusting over his girlfriend when she role-plays as a footballer leave the character as a 2D trope instead of anything truly witty or original.
Ray is also haphazardly used in Scary Movie 2, he’s seen overtly making sexual advances on his classmates and later found wearing a wig and a red dress in the kitchen – completely out of character.
Perhaps the most offensive moment is when Ray is attacked by a possessed clown in his bedroom – he manages to overpower the clown and sexually assault them. It’s a deeply concerning moment that only plays into the harmful gay villain stereotype of sexual deviance.
In an interview for the Scary Movie’s 20th anniversary in 2020, the Wayans brothers and producer Bo Zenga acknowledged that the film’s lowbrow gay jokes probably wouldn’t make it into a film these days.
Zenga told Variety: “There’s a lot of gay humour that I don’t think would make it into a movie today.”
Marlon – who has raised a trans child and has since shared he is “ashamed [and] embarrassed” by his ignorance of wanting to “hypnotise” his child out of being trans – noted the film would be “difficult to greenlight” today.
In June 2-24, Marlon Wayans showed his LGBTQ+ allyship by sharing a Pride month post on Instagram – then trolling bigots who reacted negatively to it.
Wayans shared an image from a Pride-themed photoshoot to Instagram, writing: ““Happy PRIDE to all my LGBTQ+ peoples. I’m STRAIGHT … well, according to my child, CISGENDER male. I just love and support my peoples.” He was pictured draped in a Pride flag.
“What I’ve learned from doing stand-up comedy is the opinions of the people and the taste of the people is not dictated by the politically correct nature of the social political climate” Marlon continued in the 2020 Variety interview.
“We live in America, and freedom of speech is the First Amendment. With freedom of speech comes freedom of creativity.
“And I think anybody can do a joke about anything and it’s just who’s telling the joke and what’s your intention? Is your intention to humiliate, or is your intention to make people laugh?”
He concluded: “Our intention is always to make people laugh.”
There are no further details about the cast or plot of Scary Movie 6, but we’ll be sure to keep you updated.
How did this story make you feel?
