10 Characters Who Survived The Movie (Only To Suddenly Die In The Sequel)

The Scream franchise is highly aware of horror movie cliches, and so the third film intentionally mirrors all these other films with a sudden death in its opening scene.

Cotton Weary, played by Liev Schreiber, is a pretty major character in Scream 2. He was sent to prison when it was thought he murdered Sidney's mother, but he's released as it's discovered Billy and Stu actually killed her. Cotton is desperately seeking fame throughout the movie, and for a while it's implied that he might be the killer this time. However, in the last act it's revealed that Mrs. Loomis was the real killer, and Cotton is the one to shoot and kill her. Sidney declares Cotton a hero, and he finally gets the fame he wanted. How nice.

And in Scream 3, he dies almost immediately. In the opening scene of the sequel, Cotton receives a call from Ghostface and when he refuses to reveal the location of Sidney, both he and his girlfriend are brutally murdered. That's it for him.

It's a clear case of Wes Craven being highly aware of horror franchise history, playing off the trope of taking the hero from the last movie and having him killed in the opening of the sequel. It's shocking and a little disappointing, but that's definitely the point.