Fires, healing, and a return to “Scary Movie 6”

Anna Faris returns as Cindy Campbell in “Scary Movie 6,” released in theaters June 5, describing the comeback as unexpectedly healing after a house fire during the 2025 Los Angeles fires. The Wayans brothers also reunite as writers and stars, aiming to revive

When Anna Faris stepped back into the role of Cindy Campbell for “Scary Movie 6,” she didn’t expect the experience to feel like relief. She says the return landed at exactly the right time—one month after her house burned down in the 2025 Los Angeles fires.

Faris, now 49, frames the comeback as emotional in a way she didn’t plan for. She thought “Scary Movie” might resurface in her life, but she feared it would come with a kind of quiet decline: a cameo, a consolation prize. What she got instead was a full return—and she calls it “healing.”

“‘Scary Movie’ would be healing! It turns out, it is,” Faris said. “What a weird, crazy twist in life.”

“Scary Movie 6,” in theaters June 5, follows the franchise back to its roots after a 13-year absence. Faris says the film takes a scene-by-scene approach that mirrors the structure of “Scream. ” including a focus on the 2022 revival simply titled “Scream. ” while leaning hard into nonstop physical comedy. gross-out gags and pop culture references.

The movie also skews other horror hits of recent years, including “Sinners,” “The Substance,” “Longlegs,” and “Get Out,” as well as others.

The Wayans brothers return to a franchise they once left behind

For Marlon and Shawn Wayans, “Scary Movie 6” isn’t just another sequel. The brothers are back as writers and stars, returning the series to its original creative orbit after years away. They previously wrote the first two “Scary Movie” films for their brother, Keenen Ivory Wayans, who directed.

But their partnership with the franchise ended badly. The Wayans allege that Miramax—at the time run by Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein—offered them low pay for “Scary Movie 3.” After they turned it down. the studio moved on to new filmmakers and went on to make three sequels without their involvement.

Shawn Wayans described the experience with a dark punchline. comparing it to watching a child take over something that used to belong to you: “Seeing other writers and directors handle their series was like ‘watching your baby do crack. ’ quips Shawn Wayans. ‘He’s gonna lose all his teeth. and then hopefully. once he hits rock bottom. he’ll come back home and drink a green juice.’”.

In the present, Marlon Wayans says the door is open. When Miramax approached them again under new leadership, he says he held no “bitterness” and was eager to “let bygones be bygones.”

The mission now, Marlon Wayans says, is to “resuscitate” a parody franchise that he describes as largely dead since the 2000s. Shawn Wayans argues that the genre was “bastardized,” pointing to the wave of lower-quality spoof films that followed the original success.

Inclusive jokes—and a trailer moment that drew immediate attention

“Scary Movie 6” also tackles sensitive topics, and it doesn’t shy away from offense as a subject of the film itself. Wayans said the very first joke in the trailer ruffled feathers: during a stabbing, a character becomes upset because a bystander uses the wrong pronouns.

Marlon Wayans tied his approach to something personal. He says he has “always been an ally to the community” and points to being the father of a trans child. That, he says, inspired a tender subplot involving a trans character and a supportive dad.

“We never do it to be offensive,” Wayans said. “We do it to be inclusive. We are equal opportunity offenders. so if you get upset about a pronoun joke. then [someone else] is going to be upset about this ICE joke. and Black people are going to be upset about some of these Black jokes. We spread this around, and we all get our turns to laugh with, and at, each other.”.

He adds that the goal is “tasteful,” even when the film is “being tasteless.” Wayans says they “hit hard, but with kid gloves,” insisting it’s not about making people feel bad. “We want to make people feel good,” he said.

For Faris, the comeback meant proving she still belonged

Faris says the Wayans approached her to reprise Cindy at a time when she needed some levity. She says the month prior was defined by the Los Angeles fires, and that aftermath made her especially receptive to a project that pulled her into something larger than a typical job.

She says she wasn’t invited to “Scary Movie 5” in 2013, and she assumed that if the series returned, it wouldn’t be with her in the center. “I thought I was getting relegated due to age,” she said.

That fear shows up in how she describes her own expectations. She says she imagined a version of “Scary Movie” that treated her like an afterthought: “I did always think that if ‘Scary Movie’ were to resurface in my life, that I would be sad. I would be a cameo. I would be doing it for a mortgage.”

Instead, Faris says she felt something different the moment she stepped in. She called it “awesome” to feel like an original again—after years when she felt others may have been casting the wrong person.

“It felt awesome to be able to feel like an original, when before, I very much felt like, ‘You guys made a mistake in casting me,’” Faris said.

Her earlier career also carried a different kind of confusion. She says before “Scary Movie,” she had “never identified” as funny. Faris described feeling bewildered when people told her she was funny and said it didn’t fit her own sense of who she was. She also said that after “Scary Movie” became a hit. she felt frustrated that it limited her access to auditions for dramas where she felt more comfortable.

“‘I had never identified with that adjective, ever,’ Faris says. ‘So it always felt like, ‘No, you’ve got the wrong person.’ Turns out, here I am.’”

Cindy, by contrast, arrives in the new film as a mess—cooped up, changed by isolation, and spoofing elements of “Halloween.” In the new movie, Cindy has been “cooped up in isolation and gone slightly mad,” including a spoof of Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis from 2018’s “Halloween.”

When she reconnects with her pal Brenda, played by Regina Hall spoofing Octavia Spencer’s character from “Ma,” Cindy tells her she’s “a Republican now,” adding that she’s “supposed to be racist.” Faris says she pitched that line early.

“If anybody is going to hold up a mirror to MAGA, to the quarantine, hardcore person who ‘did their research,’ who spun out a bit, it’s Cindy Campbell,” Faris said.

Not everyone, though, has followed the same path into acceptance

Even with her renewed confidence, Faris says not all support is automatic. She pointed to friends and family back in her hometown who still react skeptically.

“My hometown friends and family would be like, ‘No, you’re still not funny,’” Faris said.

For Faris and for the Wayans brothers, “Scary Movie 6” is built from that tension—between the urge to fit in and the decision to show up anyway, between the rough history of the franchise and the renewed attempt to revive it on purpose.

Anna Faris Scary Movie 6 Cindy Campbell Wayans brothers Marlon Wayans Shawn Wayans Miramax Harvey Weinstein Bob Weinstein Keenen Ivory Wayans Scream 2022 Los Angeles fires 2025 inclusive comedy trans subplot Regina Hall Octavia Spencer Jamie Lee Curtis Halloween spoof