Combined with the film's rushed schedule, the script was rewritten often pages were sometimes completed on the day of filming. The film suffered controversy following its significant issues with plot information leaking onto the Internet, revealing the identity of the killers. Following a successful test screening of Scream and the film's financial and critical success, Dimension moved forward with the sequel while Scream was still in theaters, with the principal cast all returning to star, Craven to direct and Beltrami to provide music. Williamson provided a five-page outline for a sequel to Scream when auctioning his original script, hoping to entice bidders with the potential of buying a franchise. Like its predecessor, Scream 2 combines the violence of the slasher genre with elements of comedy, satire and " whodunit" mystery while satirizing the cliché of film sequels. Scream 2 takes place two years after the first film and again follows the character of Sidney Prescott (Campbell), and other survivors of the Woodsboro massacre, at the fictional Windsor College in Ohio, where they are targeted by a copycat killer using the guise of Ghostface. It was followed by three sequels, Scream 3 (2000), Scream 4 (2011), and a fifth film, which began filming in September 2020. The film was released on December 12, 1997, less than a year after the first, by Dimension Films, as the second installment in the Scream film series. It stars David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jamie Kennedy, Laurie Metcalf, Jerry O'Connell, Elise Neal, Timothy Olyphant, Jada Pinkett and Liev Schreiber. Scream 2 is a 1997 American slasher film directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson.