10 Movie Characters Totally Changed During Production

3. Dewey Riley - Scream

The Character

Dewey Riley (David Arquette), the lovable goofball deputy sheriff of Woodsboro, who finds himself on the tail of - and hunted by - the Ghostface killer, while serving as a confidante to Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell).

What Changed?

The actual characterisation of Dewey stayed totally consistent during writing and shooting of Wes Craven's meta-horror classic, but one key change completely altered the character's destiny.

Dewey originally died from his nasty stab wound at the end of the film, but after test audiences consistently expressed their fondness for the character, an additional scene was shot showing Dewey surviving his injury and being loaded into an ambulance.

Considering that the character went on to appear in all three sequels and endure as a fan favourite throughout the series, it's a pretty damn substantial change in retrospect.

It's also one which clearly shifted the future of the franchise in ways we'll probably never fully appreciate (particularly by humanising Courtney Cox's standoffish journalist Gale Weathers).