Lionsgate's Michael arrives in theaters this weekend amid abysmal reviews, and the Scary Movie team couldn't resist kicking the biopic when it's down with a new teaser and poster for the upcoming horror parody revival.
The teaser finds SNL alum Kenan Thompson attempting a dreadful Michael Jackson impersonation before moonwalking right down a flight of stairs (top-tier comedy from these lads), while the poster reimagines this franchise's slightly goofier take on Ghostface as the legendary King of Pop.
Social media has been flooded with Jackson fans complaining about the movie's Rotten Tomatoes score (though it's since risen to a slightly more respectable 36%), and this poster - which features the tagline "Touching Fans Everywhere" - will almost certainly result in more backlash.
The original creative team of Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Keenen Ivory Wayans are back on board for the sixth Scary Movie, with Anna Faris and Regina Hall reprising their respective roles as Cindy Campbell and Brenda Meeks. Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Lochlyn Monroe, Dave Sheridan, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott and Jon Abrahams also return, along with new cast members Damon Wayans Jr., Kim Wayans, and Heidi Gardner.
The Wayans certainly have a lot more material to take aim at for this next movie, and this trailer alone includes nods to Smile, Scream 6, Sinners, Get Out, M3GAN, Weapons, Heart Eyes, Terrifier, Malignant, The Substance and Final Destination Bloodlines.
"We're gonna do what we always do.," Marlon Wayans told EW in a recent interview. "We're gonna make fun of everybody because we're equal opportunity offenders," he says. "We have a recipe, we have a formula that you can't mimic or copy. You could try, but it's very specific. It's how we grew up, and it's how we see the world. It's the household we were raised in with the sense of humor that we all were governed with, that we inherited from our mother."
"We like to be fearless," he continued. "Yet still do things with kid gloves to let people laugh at themselves."
"I got me and my brothers together to come back to a franchise that we were removed from. I think the assignment is to bring back the cast, bring back me and my brothers working together, and to bring back big-ass laughs. The world needs a big-ass laugh."
Most of the Scary Movies performed very well at the box office, taking in north of $896M worldwide through five instalments. The 2000 original was one of the biggest R-rated horror movies of all time back in the day, but by the time the fifth entry had rolled around, audiences seemed to have grown tired of the same recycled jokes.
Check out the new teaser and posters below.
Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer (“Ghostface”), the Core Four are back in the killer’s crosshairs and no horror movie IP is safe. Marlon Wayans (“Shorty”), Shawn Wayans (“Ray”), Anna Faris (“Cindy”), and Regina Hall (“Brenda”) reunite in Scary Movie alongside returning favorites and fresh faces to slash through reboots, remakes, requels, prequels, sequels, spin-offs, elevated horror, origin stories, anything with the word legacy in it, and every “final chapter” that absolutely isn’t final. Nothing is sacred. No trope survives. Every line gets crossed. The Wayans are back to cancel the Cancel Culture.