Anna Farris explains why she returned for Scary Movie 6 after being 'cut from franchise'
Scary Movie is back and, if you care about Rotten Tomatoes scores, it isn’t looking good for fans of the franchise.
The horror parody film sits at 26% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing, but not everyone is convinced that is even a bad thing. One viral tweet said about the new Scary Movie: “20% in the scary movie franchise is like a 12 minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival.”
Going off this logic fans should be thrilled that Anna Faris, Regina Hall, and the Wayans are back for the new film which sees them parody a new wave of iconic horror films such as Sinners, Get Out, and Weapons.
Farris had previously been cut from the franchise, not appearing in the fifth film, whilst Marlon, Shawn, and Keenen Wayans were only in the first two Scary Movies.
Anna Faris wasn’t asked to appear in Scary Movie 5, and was contractually obligated to appear in three and four
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Appearing on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, she spoke about how she wasn’t expecting to get Scary Movie when she first auditioned as she had no experience in comedy, fighting the imposter syndrome for years to feel she was ‘funny’.
Speaking about not appearing in Scary Movie 5, widely agreed to be the worst in the franchise with a dismal 4% on Rotten Tomatoes, she said: “I wasn't invited to do Scary Movie 5. The franchise got taken away from the Wayans Brothers after Scary Movie 2, I was under contract to do Scary Movie 3 and I went on and did four, and then wasn't asked to do five, but the conversation was still percolating.”
She said that her agent would ‘every few years’ talk about how new executives might bring the film series back, but she said she always felt that her and Regina Hall were ‘undervalued financially’ so she wasn’t interested in a return.
The comedic star pointed out that she was number one on the call sheet but wasn’t in the first poster and wasn’t paid anywhere near the most, calling it a ‘humbling’ start.
Anna Faris hadn’t spoken to the Wayan Brothers in 20 years when he called to let her know the film series was coming back
Faris revealed that she was called by Marlon Wayans in February of 2025, saying that he had told her ‘we got our franchise back’.
The brothers have repeatedly said they had their franchise ‘taken from them’ with it widely reported that a series of contract disputes around pay were unable to be resolved. Marlon has specifically named Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob as a major factor in losing the rights to the films.
This led the studio to move on without them, keeping Faris and Hall for 3 and 4 but not the fifth film.
Talking about the three films they had no part in, Marlon Wayans compared it to ‘having a child who becomes a crackhead’. Speaking to GQ, he said: “It was just like, ‘But you got to let them — They got to go get that crack’.
“But we let it go. It wasn't like when it came out, we didn't even see the movie. Matter of fact, when I did part six, we didn't look at part three, four, and five.”
He cited CEO Jonathan Glickman as the reason for fighting to bring the Wayans back involved, whilst Faris said of returning in an interview with EW: “I felt valued in a way that I never thought the franchise would give me.
"It felt very, very, very meaningful and powerful to me to be able to look at Marlon in particular and be like, 'Dude, I love you. Your family gave me something huge. And I'm beloved by association.' It made me feel like I'm a big part of an even bigger thing, whatever that is. And I really feel — it makes me choked up.”
Topics: TV and Film, Film, Celebrity
Michael Slavin