A 'Scream' TV Series Is Coming To MTV

Though it will likely contain far fewer splashy guest stars than its big-screen counterparts, a Scream TV series is in development with MTV. As is the case with the TV adaptations of any beloved franchise, this brings with it a pretty big question: Will it work? Any new TV show faces that same question, but with an established entity already in place there comes along a very specific history of the failures that came before it.

When Scream came along in 1996 it was something pretty special: A horror movie that knew it was a horror movie and conducted itself accordingly. Since then — and since that game-changing Drew Barrymore opener — the meta way has embedded itself into the genre, and into pop culture in general, and so have a lot of Scream's other modes.

And this TV series, if it ever makes it to air, is in a pretty unique position: Though it could easily fail, it could just as easily not. That sounds like the case with any new show, but MTV right at this moment is in the midst of basking in some pretty great decisions they've made about their original series line-up: Awkward may be ending next year but it's had a pretty solid run, and Teen Wolf and Faking It are shows they seem pretty damn proud of. Add this to the current vogue of horror-comedy as expressed my Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story on FX and the comedy-horror series he's got in the works, and you've got a show capitalizing on a recent trend with something old, something borrowed, and maybe even something new.

Who knows if a Scream series will actually be good — MTV seems to be lining itself up to face down an interesting kind of competition come Oct 2015.

Image: Dimension Films