Scary Movie Is Back — and the Wayans Are Winning the Box Office

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By TRH Entertainment Desk

June 2026. News Analysis. Review.

Twenty-five years after redefining horror parody, the Wayans brothers return to the franchise they created as Scary Movie storms the box office despite poor reviews, proving nostalgia and comedy still have major drawing power.

Twenty-five years after Ghostface first got the parody treatment, Paramount’s reboot of the beloved horror spoof franchise has arrived — critics be damned. The laughs are back, and so are the Wayans. The Scary Movie reboot from Keenen Ivory, Marlon, and Shawn Wayans — the brothers reuniting for the first time in 18 years to write an original script — opened in theatres on June 5, 2026, distributed by Paramount Pictures with Miramax financing the production.

The road to this moment was longer than anyone expected. The series spawned five previous films before running out of gas with the 2013 installment. But horror never stopped pulling crowds. Films like Five Nights at Freddy’s, Smile, and M3GAN kept drawing massive audiences, leaving a rich and untapped vein of material ready for the Scary Movie team to parody.

The announcement came at CinemaCon in April 2024, where Paramount and Miramax confirmed the reboot under a first-look partnership deal. The original movie, directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and co-written by his brothers Shawn and Marlon along with Buddy Johnson, opened to $42.3 million in July 2000, eventually earning $157 million domestically and $278 million globally. The franchise grossed north of $896 million across five films — enough to justify bringing it back.

What makes this reboot different from, say, the poorly-received later sequels is who’s actually behind it. Marlon Wayans had spoken publicly about Harvey Weinstein’s role in “stealing” the franchise from his family, citing a problematic early deal with Miramax. “You can’t do Wayans shit without the Wayans,” Marlon said during a September 2024 appearance on the Club Shay Shay podcast. “You can try, but eventually you’re gonna lose a lot of money because what we do is special.”

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Now the creators are back in control, and audiences are responding. Social analytics firm RelishMix tracked an online reach of 653 million across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X for the sixth film — 2.7 times above horror franchise norms — with nostalgia described as “doing a full victory lap in a Ghostface mask.”

The ensemble cast is the largest in the franchise’s history: Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall return as the original leads, joined by Damon Wayans Jr., Kim Wayans, Anthony Anderson, Jon Abrahams, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri, Dave Sheridan, and Chris Elliott. New additions include Heidi Gardner of Saturday Night Live and Sydney Park of The Walking Dead.

Miramax CEO Jonathan Glickman expressed enthusiasm for the reunion: “We are thrilled to reunite Scary Movie with the Wayans brothers, the brilliant creators behind the beloved franchise. The timing is perfect to bring back the series to the big screen.”

The Wayans themselves echoed the sentiment. “We couldn’t be more excited to be a part of the new Scary Movie and work with each other again,” they said in a joint statement. “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. It’s a double reunion.”

Directed by Michael Tiddes, the film takes aim at recent genre hits including Terrifier, Smile, Wednesday, and Get Out, among others. Miramax financed the production for a reported $30 million.

Critics have not been kind — the film carries a Metacritic score of 37 at time of writing. But the audience verdict is delivering a different kind of verdict entirely. The reboot is on track for a franchise-record opening weekend, outpacing Scary Movie 5’s 2013 opening of just $14 million by a wide margin.

The wider box office picture says something telling: a relatively cheap comedy reboot built on nostalgia is winning the weekend, while a much more expensive franchise play — Amazon MGM’s Masters of the Universe, carrying a $200 million budget — is already looking like a major miss.

In Hollywood’s current climate, that’s no joke. It’s a lesson.