Warning: This article features spoilers for Scream.

Scream star Melissa Barrera revealed a few of the alternate endings to the script. Scream, which came to theaters on January 14, is the fifth entry in the meta slasher franchise that has been running since the original Wes Craven classic premiered in 1996. The film follows a brand new killer behind the Ghostface mask, intent on creating a "requel" combining new characters (like Barrera's character Sam Carpenter and her sister Tara, played by Jenna Ortega) with the legacy characters fans expect to return (including Gale, Dewey, and Sidney, played by Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and Neve Campbell respectively).

It has been known for quite a while that co-writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick wrote alternate endings to Scream to avoid spoilers leaking onto the internet. This is a longstanding tradition with the Scream films, ever since Scream 2 became the subject of one of the first major internet leaks, forcing Kevin Williamson to completely change the ending. Scream 3 even pokes fun at the fact that the script was constantly being altered during filming by having the in-universe director and cast of the fictional Stab 3 complain about rewrites.

Related: Scream 2022 Vs Matrix Resurrections: Which Meta-Sequel Is Better?

While speaking with THR about everything Scream 2022, Barrera revealed who the Ghostface killers turned out to be in some of those original drafts. Although they didn't end up shooting any of these scenes due to their tight budget and quarantine restrictions, the alternate killers were generally pairings of other female characters with Amber (Mikey Madison), who did turn out to be one of the killers in the actual film. Barrera remembers one ending pairing Amber with Randy Meeks' film geek niece Mindy (Jasmine Savoy Brown), and one pairing her with Liv (Sonia Ben Ammar), who is Mindy's twin brother Chad's (Mason Gooding) girlfriend. Barrera confesses that "they didn’t give me the right ending, and I actually didn’t know who the killers were going to end up being until later." Read the full quote here:

I’m trying to remember because the first script that I read had different killers. They gave us different versions of the ending, and they had produced different versions of the ending as a precaution in case someone leaked the ending. They could cover themselves this way. But in my script, I remember the killers were both female. I don’t think it was Tara; I think it was Amber [Mikey Madison] and Mindy [Jasmin Savoy Brown] or Amber and Liv [Sonia Ben Ammar]. And when I talked to the directors, I was like, “Oh my god, it’s so amazing that it’s all women at the end. The killers are women and the survivors are women. It’s so epic!” And they were like, “Yeah, that’s not the real ending.” So I was like, “OK! I’m still going to be excited.” So they didn’t give me the right ending, and I actually didn’t know who the killers were going to end up being until later.

David Arquette and Melissa Barrera in Scream

The killer reveal is one of the integral scenes of any Scream movie. Although some of them - like the one in Scream 2 - had to be jerry-rigged out of parts that didn't seem to originally fit, they are an opportunity for the actors to showcase their range while menacing Sidney Prescott and her remaining friends. The killers also tend to be stars who were either already famous or would grow to be big stars, adding a new layer of audience intrigue. That fact does indeed come into play with the actual killer who is eventually revealed to be Amber's partner.

One thing that is interesting is that the co-writers of Scream seem to never have considered Sam as a potential killer. Given the fact that the new final girl is the daughter of original killer Billy Loomis and even sees visions of him trying to tempt her to kill, this seems like an obvious option. This decision certainly shows how set they were to have both Sam and her sister provide the emotional core of the film from the very beginning.

Next: Scream 2022’s Box Office Proves Horror Is Disney's Biggest Competition

Source: THR