The Unseen VFX of Scary Movie 3

In the age of digital filmmaking so much gets left discarded. The great expense of film processing and printing unnecessary rolls of celluloid are long gone. So its hard to understand why in 2003, the producers and director of a popular film franchise would be so casual about what they shot, what they planned to shoot and what they would ultimately discard. Such was the case with Scary Movie 3, the third film in the Scream- spoof  megafranchise. A good deal of what was planned and what was thought up on the fly was very coldly discarded to the trim bin (or where ever digital edits go). SM3 was shot on film, the digital camera craze hadn't taken over yet but in spite of that many complex sequences were planned, or filmed but never used. The ultimate directive on the film was if it wasn't funny, it goes. It's understandable. After all, it's a comedy. You have to make people laugh. But so much of the SM series' basic structure relies on spoofing current trends and pop culture memes which change as the wind blows, not very conducive to the rigid schedules of most Hollywood productions. Several popular films including the highly anticipated sequel to The Matrix, Matrix Reloaded, had just reached the mega-plexes and the producers wanted to cash in on that newly minted comedy gold. They stopped production mid through the principal photography and drove the entire crew to a theatre in Vancouver to see the film so they could recreate many of the sequences in a comedic context. Most of the crew (and the whole world for that matter) couldn't make heads or tails of it. An extensive riff on the Agent Smith army vs Neo character was shot but also discarded. The Hulk (with Eric Bana) had also opened and they wanted to cash in on that potential goldmine of humor, going as far to paint up comedy actor Kevin Hart in green to test it's comedic potential. A large Hulk-suit was built and tested. That idea fell flat as well. The most extreme cut of all came when Academy Award winning make-up effects house ADI spent months designing and developing sophisticated alien suits (to spoof the creatures in the hit film Signs) but ultimately they did not make the final cut (footage of them appeared on the DVD, however). Not much remained of the extensive Matrix sequel spoof sequences except George Carlin's amusing cameo as the Architect. And nearly nothing remain from the planned Hulk gags which were deemed too complex to shoot on the film's modest budget. In what may be little consolation to the crew of technicians who labored for months on the film's excised segments, It was a huge box office hit and one of the most successful in the series. It remains a lesson, a cautionary tale for those who dream of making films. Dont get attached too much to the things you create. Especially when someone else is writing the check.

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