Scream 3 (2000) (theatrical name "Scr3am") is the third installment in the successful Scream trilogy of satirical horror films. It follows Scream 2.

The film stars Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courteney Cox Arquette, each reprising their roles from the first two films. This is the only part of the Scream trilogy not to be written by Kevin Williamson, as he was busy working on his short-lived television series Wasteland. Newcomer Ehren Kruger (who would later go on to write the highly successful screenplays for both The Ring and The Ring Two) was given the task of writing the script based on notes Williamson himself had sketched out.

Having experienced the trauma of the first two pictures, Campbell's Sidney Prescott character now lives in a secluded area of California where she works as a women's crisis counselor from her home. Her whereabouts are unknown even to her surviving friends (save for Dewey, played by Arquette). Gale Weathers (Cox) has become a largely successful news reporter (of a sensationalist style), thanks to the books she wrote revolving around the murders of the first two films (and subsequent films based on the books).

The film begins when Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), the man long-ago suspected of killing Sidney's mother, is slaughtered (along with his girlfriend). Suspected of being related to the original killings, Los Angeles police detectives (led by Mark Kincaid, played by Patrick Dempsey) inform Gale Weathers of Weary's murder, asking if she may know anything about a picture found at the murder scene. When she identifies it as a picture of Maureen Prescott, Sidney's mother, it becomes apparent the killings are linked to her murder.

Meanwhile, Weathers visits the set of the latest film in the Stab series, Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro. There she discovers a set that looks identical to the scene of the horrific "real" events that plagued her in the first Scream film. The visit also provides Weathers with the opportunity to meet director Roman Bridger (Scott Foley) and the various performers who are portraying the real-life people she knew or knows: Angelina Tyler (Emily Mortimer) as "Sidney", Sarah Darling (Jenny McCarthy) as "Candy", Tom Prinze (Matt Keeslar) as "Dewey" and Jennifer Jolie (Parker Posey) as Gale herself.

Soon, these actors are systematically killed off in the same order as they are slated to be murdered in the Stab 3 script. Sidney is brought in to help unravel who is behind these killings, but she is barely holding onto her own sanity because of the trauma of past events.

It turns out that Roman (who had faked his own murder) is the killer known as Ghostface, the connection being that he is the son of Sidney's mother (her half-brother). He was born because Sidney's mother had slept with a well known director to get parts in his movies (Gale and her movie counterpart discovered Sid's mother's acting career, which brought forth somewhat a short-lived friendship, as fake Gale was killed towards the end).

Eventually, when Sidney confronts Roman, she "kills" him by shooting him with a gun she snuck in, but he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. He manages to shoot her in the heart, but she was also wearing a bullet-proof vest (one from the police station), and kills him. As usual, Roman, being the main villain, wasn't really dead and Dewey kills him for real after being told (by Sidney, the only one who knew of Roman's bulletproof vest) to shoot Roman in the head.

Facing immense pressure to produce more hits after the success of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Dawson's Creek, writer Kevin Williamson had become so overworked he eventually was forced to drop out and hand writing duties over to newcomer Ehren Kruger.

The complaints of the actors of Stab 3 regarding the rewrites and three different scripts is a reflection of those of the real cast's because of the same issues behind the scenes due to apparent leaks of the scripts onto the Internet, and postings on fansites and the Internet Movie Database .

The original storyline as drafted by Kevin Williamson for the film revolved around the killings of a new, fresh-faced group of teenagers attending Woodsboro High School. This storyline was dropped towards the very end of pre-production due to the events at Columbine High School. The plot was quickly altered and was instead set in Hollywood with the killings revolving around the production of Stab 3.

A signature device, started in Scream and continued in Scream 2 and Scream 3, was the typical "rules" for that type of horror movie being stated by the characters. In Scream 3, Sidney, Dewey, Gale and Randy's sister (Heather Matarazzo), watch a video made by Randy (Jamie Kennedy, in a cameo role) before his death in Scream 2; he states that if the third movie is just another sequel, then the standard rules for a sequel (given in Scream 2) apply. However, "If you find yourself dealing with an unexpected backstory, and a preponderance of exposition, then the sequel rules do not apply. Because you are not dealing with a sequel, you are dealing with the concluding chapter of a trilogy." The rules for the final concluding chapter of a trilogy are different:

"You've got a killer who’s gonna be super human. Stabbing him won’t work, shooting him won’t work, basically in the third one, you gotta cryogenically freeze his head, decapitate him, or blow him up."

"Anyone, including the main character, can die. This means you Sid."

"The past will come back to bite you in the ass. Whatever you think you know about the past, forget it. The past is not at rest, any sins you think were committed in the past are about to break out and destroy you."

Basically in the third movie, all bets are off.

Later, Det. Mark Kincaid says "All I know about movie trilogies is in the third one, all bets are off." It is also worth mentioning that in Scream 2 Randy states that sequels have bigger body counts where as Scream 3 has the same amount of deaths as Scream 2. This is only true if you include the deaths of the killers along with their victims. If you don't, Scream 2 had 8 victims while Scream 3 had 9 and is the only Scream film to feature a 'double event' where two victims are killed within minutes of each other prior to the finale.

Wes Craven makes a cameo dressed as a tourist walking behind Jay and Silent Bob, outside the Stab 3 set.

Jay and Silent Bob, the popular characters from Kevin Smith's movies, appear as tourists visiting Sunrise Studios. In original Scream, a VHS copy of their first film Clerks. can be spotted in Stu Macher's house. Kevin Smith would later go on to include Wes Craven in a cameo as the director of a fictitious Scream 4 in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; in addition, a copy of Scream 3 can be seen in the background of a scene taking place within a video store in Smith's 2004 film Jersey Girl.

Carrie Fisher plays Bianca Burnette, an employee of the studio making Stab 3, talking with Gale, she says that when she was young she tried to win the casting to play Princess Leia.

References to people:

Gale, played by Courteney Cox, makes mention of Jennifer's relationship with Brad Pitt. In reality, Cox's Friends co-star Jennifer Aniston was married to Pitt.

The name on the empty cinematographer's chair on the set of the fictitious Stab 3 is the name of the real film's actual cinematographer, Peter Deming.

Jay and Silent Bob, who make an appearance, mistake Gale for TV reporter Connie Chung, when Jay says about Gale, "It's that TV news chick Connie Chung." Also, when Jay and Silent Bob mistake Gale for Connie Chung, they mention Maury Povich to Gale, when Jay asks "Hey, Connie, How's Maury?", right before she gives both of them the finger.

During the studio tour, the tour guide mentions that making a stop to the set of Seinfeld. Patrick Warburton, who plays Steven Stone in the film, earned fame for his recurring role as Elaine Benes's boyfriend David Puddy on Seinfeld.

Lance Henriksen's director character shares the same name as the famous 17th century English poet John Milton, best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. Many have drawn similarities between the character in the film with Satan in Paradise Lost.

Music:

The Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song "Red Right Hand" is played in the film, having been heard in all three films. Nick Cave actually wrote a "sequel" to the song just for the film, which can be heard in the closing credits. This song features on The Seeds' B-Sides and Rarities. Additionally, Marco Beltrami uses a few notes from the song in his score.

Also, the Creed song "What If" has a video which resembles the happenings of Scream 3, and is featured on the DVD release of the movie. It has a cameo appearance for David Arquette.

Reception:

The film set a record in its opening weekend for the number of screens in the United States: 3,467. This was later surpassed by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) with 3,762.

Though the film had a sizeable opening weekend of over $34 million, it was the only entry in the series that failed to gross over $100 million, falling just short at $89 million.

Critically, the film received mixed reviews. Some critics appreciated the tone of violence (The film contains much less gore than its predecessors), but were disappointed with the plot. The movie was criticized for actually becoming a slasher film (the previous films spoofed them).