Trivia: The plot of Scream 3, which involves the predatory sexual history of the producer of the film-within-the-film "Stab 3," would unfortunately prove even more prescient years later as the predatory sexual history of studio head Harvey Weinstein was made public. His victims included Rose McGowan, who appeared in the first Scream. The Weinstein Company produced the first four Scream films, and after it was shut down the Scream series was bought by Spyglass Entertainment and Paramount.
Trivia: Like the other Scream films, in this movie there's a small part for the man himself, Wes Craven. He's the guy with the video camera walking by Jay and Silent Bob. He even takes a good look at the camera. (00:18:30)
Trivia: At one point, it was not known whether Neve Campbell would be able to appear in the film as Sidney due to her hectic work schedule. The studio even considered writing out of the character. She eventually agreed to appear in the film, but was only able to be on-set for a few weeks.
Trivia: Kevin Williamson (who had written the first two films, as well as the fourth) had an entirely different plot in mind, which he had outlined and given to the studio, only for it to be passed on. His original concept had the killers in the film be members of a "Stab" (the film-within-the-film) fan-club, who orchestrated the murders in order to gain fame and become heirs to Sidney Prescott's status as the soul-survivor. Aspects of this unused original story treatment were re-written into the fourth film, which features a killer whose motivation is fame and becoming the soul-survivor.
Trivia: At the start of the film where Cotton Weary enters his house looking for his ill-fated girlfriend. He takes his jacket off and reveals a jumper similar to Casey's in Scream. A sure fire sign of his death.
Trivia: Jay and Silent Bob from Clerks and several other Kevin Smith films (who plays Bob) have a cameo.
Trivia: The videotape in which Randy appeared is called Scary Movie 101. Scary Movie was the original title of Scream.
Trivia: During Cotton Weary's death, many of the shots used are similar or the same to the ones used for Casey's death in Scream and Heather Graham's death in Stab.
Trivia: Matthew Lillard revealed that his character from the first film, Ghostface killer Stuart "Stu" Macher, was originally going to be the new Ghostface killer in this film. Stu actually survived when Sidney pushed the TV on his head. From prison, Stu was going to orchestrate new Ghostface attacks to get revenge on Sidney. Stu was ultimately written out of the film and replaced with Roman Bridger.
Trivia: In the early days of production, they had originally planned for Angelina Tyler to be the second killer, but this plan was scrapped before filming began.
Trivia: Due to scheduling and casting issues, Patrick Dempsey was reportedly hired the night before he began filming and had to stay up most of the night trying to memorize lines for his first day.
Trivia: Early on in production, director Wes Craven knew he wanted the character Randy Meeks to appear to explain the rules of a trilogy. He briefly contemplated a reveal that Randy survived his apparent death in "Scream 2" and had gone into hiding, but decided that this would undermine the high stakes of the series. He instead settled on the idea of Randy having made a video-tape about the rules shortly before his death.
Trivia: Originally, the ending was a bit different. Sidney's battle with Roman was shorter, with Sidney being more savage and easily killing him due to her trauma making her fight harder. Detective Kincaid was also absent. The studio felt that the ending was anticlimactic, and requested that it be reshot to show Sidney struggling more, and to give her a fake-out "death" to raise the stakes. They also added Kincaid to the final battle and last scene since they felt his character needed resolution.
Answer: Not expressly, though it could have been the date of some significant event (December of 1988) but someone as security-conscious as Sydney now is wouldn't be stupid enough to have her code be something that could be guessed.