Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin were the only directors considered for Scream. Coproducer William Sherak said during the virtual press day, "We never went to any other filmmakers. We wanted them from the second we started developing it. It is such a hard tone to get, and to get right. This tone is in their DNA, and the only way to really pay homage to Wes, and respect Kevin with what he created 26 years ago, was really to make sure we got the tone right."
The script was written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, who Gillett described as "wildly talented on the page" and "absolute mega fans" of the franchise. "When we read the story that Guy and Jamie put on the page, there was something so undeniably new, and also something so undeniably Scream about it," he said. "We just knew that we had to be a part of it."