Corrected entry: After the sheriff is killed Sam and Dewey leave to go to the hospital and it's daylight. On their drive to the hospital it's dark out. Then when they take Dewey's body out of the hospital and Gayle shows up it's suddenly light again.
Corrected entry: The Reporter states it has been 25 years "almost to the day" since Billy and Stu died (1996), making it September 2021. Tara is a high school senior, and her older sister, Sam, Billy's daughter, is stated multiple times as 5 years older, 23 at best. Many Easter eggs on Richie's laptop state STAB 8 is a 2021 release, which was "last year" according to Sam and Mindy in separate scenes, making the film set 2022, 26 years later. Sam is 1-2 years younger than she should be, or Tara is 20. (00:57:14 - 01:47:18)
Correction: The Scream movies never say at all specifically when they take place. For you to say "September" when the movie never ever for any reason said the month it was taking place in is just a lie and not a mistake. Also just because Mindy said "last year" doesn't mean anything. She could have meant last school year, since kids in school generally use their schooling as the basis for "this year/last year." I've already heard people say last years Scream even thought it's still 2022.
If you go back to the original towards the end of Scream while at Stu's house there is a calendar hanging up which specifically shows it saying SEPTEMBER, the original killings happened in September along with Maureen's death which is stated by Billy saying "congratulations, we killed your mom exactly one year today".
It's pretty comprehensively covered that they're in September, based on the killing of Maureen and the 1996 Scream killings which takes place almost exactly a year later: https://scream.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline.
No. They never say this in the film, at all, there is no evidence of when it takes place. The wiki link you sent is objectively pure speculation by whoever wrote it.
Corrected entry: Sam tells Mindy at Martha's, "Come on, it's just a movie", in response to her idea the killers are Stab fanatics making a "requel". In diegesis terms, it makes no sense that Sam questions this motive: Dewey states in a previous scene to her, "Your killer's obsessed with the Stab movies, right?" Contextually, she is Billy's daughter, knows his motive was based on horror film obsession; her would-be schoolmate at Woodsboro High (2 grades above), Charlie (Scream 4), was also a Stab fanatic killer. (00:41:00)
Correction: Billy says his motive is about Sidney's mother tearing apart his family causing his mother to abandon them. We have no information to go off in terms of his motive other than that. Also, considering Charlie died super fast, and the news was covering Jill when she arrived at the hospital focusing on her as a survivor, it would have been a huge media focus when she turned out to be the killer. I doubt Charlie got much fame. Sam's knowledge is limited to "back in 2011 some kids did this."
Also, where do you get Sam having been in school with Charlie. If Charlie was a senior in high school in 2011, Sam was born in 1997 at the latest after the events of Scream, less likely 1996 which would make her even younger. This would make Charlie 3-4 years older than her. It's entirely possible she knew nothing about his existence until after the 2011 killing spree.
Corrected entry: It's said that Sidney appeared in every "Stab" movie except Stab 8 - but in Scream 4, Jenny says that Sid only appeared in the first three.
Correction: That isn't what Jenny says. Marnie says: "That has nothing to do with Woodsboro. I-I thought you said "Stab" was based on true stories." Jenny Randall: "The first three, The original trilogy is based off Sidney Prescott, but then she threatened to sue them if they used her stories. So they just started making stuff up. Stab 5 has time travel, which is by far the worst." She never said the movies didn't have Sidney in them after the first three, just they aren't based on true stories.
I don't think there is a leap in logic in the original post; she threatened to sue the production if they used her story, I can't see how they would avoid a lawsuit by exploiting her character further by putting her in more movies? If it's not a retcon, it's at best a rather problematic line.
Once a film has put a character name into existence and been released, the studio owns the copyright to that name. Sidney Prescott as a character could still be used in Stab films.
For that matter, you can always argue that a person does not own the story of her own life to begin with, that's not the point. The point is that since it was stated that they were afraid of the legal action Sidney Prescott threatened, and changed course to the saga for that reason, they would -not - put Sidney Prescott in other, even more outrageous and exploitative, material.
I'm not trying to be rude, but I can tell that you do not know anything at all about copyright law. The above user was correct. You don't know in what context Sidney was used in the following Stab films. The only thing we know about those later films is the very brief description of time travel in Stab 5, and the two fake outs from Stab 6&7.
No offense taken at all, it's true! I am no lawyer and I wasn't trying to get in the intricacies of copyright law and rights of publicity. I am just saying that the movie (previous movie, from 10 years before, in an obscure line of dialogue easily retconned or forgotten...) mentions that Sidney threatened them with a lawsuit, there's no reason why they'd stir her putting her even in cameos multiple times in their every third rate following schlocky flicks. It's simple as that. Would they win a lawsuit, on the grounds of what you (or the other poster) mentioned? Sure, but they never said she did sue them, the point was for the studio to avoid that sort of legal trouble entirely.
I think we're looking at the difference between a mistake and a criticism with this one. I agree that in Scream 4 the most reasonable interpretation is that Sidney successfully got (at the least) her name removed from Stab 4 onward (especially since without any further "true" events to draw from they would've had to start making things up anyhow). But the line can be taken other ways, and even if it's a stretch or goes against the spirit the line was written in, it's different from a mistake.
It still leaves a plot hole of why Sidney threatened to sue. If not for likeness / appearance, then for what?
Corrected entry: Samantha has watched Stab, knows her father's story, and yet does not recognize she is entering Stu Macher's house. The cancelled Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro, seen in Scream 3, confirms Stu's house exterior looks exactly the same from the original Stab, and is being re-used as a prop for that film. (00:01:26)
Correction: This isn't necessarily a plot hole. You can't expect characters to know whether characters in any given universe would know if a house was previously owned by a murderer, even if that murderer was famous and depicted as such. For example, there are many houses that look identical to the Amityville Horror house in real life, but aren't the real one. In fact, they didn't film the Amityville movies at the real Amityville house, they filmed it at one that was identical.
Cont: who is to say there aren't houses in Woodsboro that are architecturally similar to the Macher one? There are many streets in the world where houses are essentially identical. Without this clarification we can't assume the individual house was 100% the only one of its kind in universe, nor can we assume there are any. We also don't know what Sam knows of the Stab films, as in how many if any she's watched. I would chalk it up as an unaddressed issue. Ie, criticism is fine, but not a hole.
Correction: When did Sam say she has watched "Stab"? She probably knows about the film from the town's history.
Correction: You can see the sun setting at several cut sways during their drive, and Tara's room is getting naturally darker as the hospital scene plays out before Ghostface arrives. Then when the scene of Gale arriving in the morning takes place you can tell it's sunrise outside, meaning the events of the hospital took place overnight.