Principal photography took place across various locations in California, with cinematography by Mark Irwin. The film's soundtrack, composed by James L. Venable, incorporated both original scoring and parody elements to complement the film's satirical tone.
Scary Movie 3 was released theatrically by Dimension Films in the United States on October 24, 2003. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $220.7 million worldwide, making it the second-highest-grossing entry in the franchise.
At the 2004 Teen Choice Awards, Scary Movie 3 won the award for Choice Movie: Your Parents Didn't Want You to See. A sequel, Scary Movie 4, was released in 2006.
Plot
Two high school girls discuss a cursed videotape that allegedly causes the death of anyone who watches it within 7 days. After both girls watch the tape, an unseen entity kills them. On a farm outside Washington, D.C., widowed pastor Tom Logan and his brother George discover crop circles in their cornfield, with Tom’s daughter Sue screaming in the center.
Cindy Campbell, a local reporter, covers the crop circle phenomenon but receives little attention. She cares for her young nephew, Cody, who displays precognitive abilities. While picking Cody up from school, Cindy meets George, who invites her and her friend Brenda Meeks to a rap battle. At the event, George impresses the crowd by defeating Fat Joe but is expelled after mistakenly wearing a white hood and greeting the audience.
Brenda later informs Cindy that she has watched the cursed videotape and asks Cindy to stay with her. After a series of pranks, Brenda is killed by the tape’s entity, Tabitha. George, Mahalik, and CJ learn of Brenda’s death. Meanwhile, Tom meets Sayaman, who accidentally caused his wife’s death in a car accident.
George and Mahalik disrupt the ceremony at Brenda's wake, attempting to revive her. Cindy discovers the cursed tape among Brenda’s belongings, watches it, and receives a call warning her of her death. Seeking help, she contacts George, Mahalik, and CJ. CJ refers her to his Aunt Shaneequa, who identifies a hidden image of a lighthouse within the tape, suggesting it holds the key to breaking the curse. While Cindy is away, Cody watches the tape, putting himself at risk.
In a further attempt to warn the public, Cindy broadcasts a warning through her news station, but her boss distorts the message. Concurrently, Tom and his family encounter an alien disguised as Michael Jackson, while President Baxter Harris arrives to investigate the crop circles.
Cindy visits the lighthouse and meets the Architect, who explains that Tabitha was his adopted daughter, a malevolent spirit who his wife drowned in a nearby well. Before her death, Tabitha transferred her evil essence into a VHS tape, which the Architect mistakenly returned to Blockbuster, releasing the curse.
Returning home, Cindy finds Cody missing and learns that the tape has been aired on live television, exposing a wide audience. She traces Cody to the Logan farm, where he has taken shelter. As chaos unfolds with global alien sightings, Tom instructs Cindy, Sue, and Cody to hide in the basement while he, George, Mahalik, President Harris, and the Secret Service confront the aliens. The extraterrestrials reveal they are peaceful and intercepted the cursed tape, mistakenly believing it to be the film Pootie Tang, and have come to Earth to stop Tabitha.
In the basement, Cindy identifies the well from the tape. Tabitha emerges and captures Cody. Cindy and George attempt to reason with her, offering her a place in their family. Though Tabitha initially appears to accept, she attacks. President Harris inadvertently opens the basement door, knocking her into the well, ending her threat.
Following the incident, Cindy and George married. As they depart for their honeymoon, they realize they have left Cody behind. Cindy narrowly avoids hitting him at an intersection, only for another vehicle to strike him.
In November 2002, Dimension Films announced the development of a third Scary Movie installment without the involvement of the Wayans brothers, who had directed and co-written the previous films.[6] In December 2002, Kevin Smith signed on as executive producer and co-writer but later withdrew from the project.[7]David Zucker was brought on as director. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who had contributed to an early draft of the original Scary Movie (2000), were initially assigned to write the script,[7] and wrote a script initially titled Scary Movie 3: Episode I – Lord of the Brooms, with the project being intended to parody the Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter franchises.[6] Although Zucker considered using their draft, he ultimately opted for a new screenplay by Craig Mazin and Pat Proft that aligned more closely with the tone of the earlier films.[8]
The score for Scary Movie 3 was composed by James L. Venable and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony. The film’s original soundtrack, featuring a blend of hip hop and contemporary music, was released on October 24, 2003. It includes contributions from artists such as Buku Wise, Delinquent Habits, Dame Lee, and Kebyar.[10]Frank Fitzpatrick served as the music supervisor, while Jorge Corante produced and co-wrote the majority of the original songs featured in the film.[11]
Release
Home media
Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment (under the Dimension Home Video banner) released the film on DVD and VHS on May 11, 2004. An unrated version titled Scary Movie 3.5 was released on September 30, 2005. On September 30, 2005, Disney also finalized their sale of Dimension Films (a sublabel of Miramax) to Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein, who were leaving Miramax's parent company Disney to form an new studio called The Weinstein Company. However, Disney/Miramax retained the rights to all of Dimension's films that had been released up until that point, despite the label itself becoming part of The Weinstein Company from October 1, 2005 onward.[12][13] Disney eventually sold Miramax and the pre-October 2005 Dimension library to private equity firm Filmyard Holdings in December 2010.[14]
Filmyard Holdings licensed the home media rights for several Dimension/Miramax titles to Lionsgate, and on September 20, 2011, Lionsgate Home Entertainment released the film's unrated cut on Blu-ray.[15] On December 6, 2011, Lionsgate also released the first three Scary Movie films on a Blu-ray triple feature.[15] In 2011, Filmyard Holdings licensed the Miramax library to streamer Netflix. This deal included Scary Movie 3, and ran for five years, eventually ending on June 1, 2016.[16]
In March 2016, Filmyard Holdings sold Miramax to Qatari company beIN Media Group.[17] Then in April 2020, ViacomCBS (now known as Paramount Skydance) bought a 49% stake in Miramax, which gave them the rights to the Miramax library and the pre-October 2005 Dimension library.[18][19] Afterwards, Paramount began reissuing many Dimension/Miramax titles they had acquired. On February 1, 2021, Paramount Home Entertainment reissued Lionsgate's triple feature Blu-ray, also releasing it as a triple feature DVD.[20][21] Paramount later made Scary Movie 3 available on their subscription streaming service Paramount+,[22] as well as on their free streaming service Pluto TV.[23]
Reception
Box office
Scary Movie 3 opened at number one at the North American box office, grossing $48.1 million during its opening weekend and $57.5 million during its first week.[4] It surpassed Red Dragon to have the highest October opening weekend at the time.[24] The film earned $24.7 million in its second weekend and ultimately grossed $110 million domestically.[25] Internationally, it grossed an additional $110.7 million, bringing its worldwide total to approximately $220.7 million. The film became the second-highest-grossing entry in the Scary Movie franchise.[4]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 36% of 126 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.8/10.The website's consensus reads: "Though an improvement over the second Scary Movie, the laughs are still inconsistent."[26]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 49 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[27] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[28]
Critics generally viewed the film as an improvement over its predecessor but criticized its uneven humor. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four, criticizing it as a simpleminded spoof with less intelligent satire than the "average issue of Mad magazine."[29]Empire wrote that the film "manages some good laughs" but criticized it for relying heavily on easy targets and repetitive slapstick.[7]
Common Sense Media noted that while the film was "less vulgar" than the previous installments, it still contained crude humor and was best suited for older teens and adults.[6]IGN observed that the film delivered "a handful of hilarious scenes," but ultimately described it as "hit and miss."[10]
The BBC review praised Anna Faris’ performance but concluded that the film "feels like a series of skits rather than a coherent movie."[9]The Guardian criticized the film’s "scattergun approach" to parody, suggesting it lacked the sharper satire found in more effective spoof comedies.[11]
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