Production was troubled, including script rewrites, occasions when pages were only ready on the day of filming, and scheduling difficulties with the main cast.

She finds Dewey Riley working as an adviser on the set of Stab 3: Return To Woodsboro, the third film in the series based on the Ghostface murders.

Ghostface kills Stab 3 actress Sarah Darling, halting the film's production to the frustration of director Roman Bridger.

Elsewhere, Sidney is living in seclusion under an alias, fearing another killer may strike, and works as a crisis counselor for an abused women's hotline.

Having uncovered her location, the killer begins taunting Sidney using a voice changer to sound like her deceased mother Maureen Prescott.

Gale and Jennifer learn that Maureen briefly worked as an actress in the 1960s under the stage name "Rina Reynolds" and had been raped at a party held by Stab 3 producer John Milton.

Dewey, Gale, Jennifer, and the remaining cast, Angelina Tyler[b] and Tyson Fox, attend a birthday party for Roman at Milton's mansion.

When he discovered the fame Sidney attracted due to those events, Roman snapped and lured her out of hiding, planning to kill her and frame her for his murders.

After Roman reveals a bound Milton and slits his throat, Sidney furiously denounces his explanation as nothing more than deflection to hide his selfish motivations.

In the aftermath of the incident, many parties began looking for rationales for their actions and this led to an increased scrutiny on the role of the media in society, including video games and film, and the influence it could have on an audience.

With the production of Scream 3 not yet underway, there were considerations about whether the film should be made at that time, aware of the potential for negative attention but the studio decided to press forward, albeit with changes.

At one point in the production, the studio went as far as demanding that the film feature no blood or on-screen violence at all, a drastic departure for the series, but Craven directly intervened.

[12][14][15] Eager to avoid further criticism or connection to such incidents, Williamson's notes were largely discarded as the studio insisted that the script should focus on the comedic elements of the series while significantly reducing the violence.

[13] In an interview, Kruger admitted that his lack of involvement with the development of the principal cast of Scream hampered his ability to portray them true to their previous characterization.

Roger L. Jackson again returned to voice the antagonist Ghostface and Jamie Kennedy reprised his role as Randy Meeks in spite of the character's death in Scream 2.

Rutherford was cast after filming had begun as the production was undergoing constant rewrites and the opening scene evolved from requiring only a female corpse to needing a live actress with whom Schreiber could interact.

[16] Shortly after being cast, Mortimer was found to lack the necessary work permit to allow her involvement in the film, requiring her to be flown to Vancouver to obtain one.

Morgan appeared in minor roles reprising their characters of Sidney's father Neil Prescott and Hank Loomis respectively.

Scream 3 featured several cameo appearances including the fictional characters of Jay and Silent Bob from the 1994 film Clerks and sequels played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, and director Roger Corman as an on-set studio executive.

[12] Principal photography for Scream 3 began on July 6, 1999, in and around Hollywood, Los Angeles on a budget of $40 million and finished on September 29, 1999, after twelve weeks.

[16] Again however, they were unable to return to Harper House to conduct filming and resorted to constructing a replica of the apartment interior to produce the necessary footage which had the Ghostface character appear more dominant and completely excised the attempted skylight escape.

[16] Cox's character is introduced during a seminar which takes place within a classroom at UCLA, a location previously used in Scream 2 to represent the fictional Windsor College.

[21] A scene in the film involved Campbell being pursued by Ghostface through filmset replicas of locations from the original Scream including her character's home.

The scene was not present in the script itself, but Craven paid to have the sets constructed, knowing he wanted to revisit the original film in some manner.

[16] The production considered that this amounted to essentially three endings, damaging the pacing of the film and there was also consideration that, being the concluding chapter of the trilogy, the audience needed to believe that Sidney could lose and die, something her easy victory did not achieve.

[16] As with the production of Scream, Craven encountered repeated conflicts over censorship with the MPAA regarding violence, and the director stated in an interview that the issues made him consider leaving the horror genre.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Despite some surprising twists, Scream 3 sees the franchise falling back on the same old horror formulas and cliches it once hacked and slashed with postmodern abandon.

"[36] In a positive review, the Los Angeles Times called the film, "Genuinely scary and also highly amusing",[37] and the BBC stated that "as the conclusion to the trilogy it works more effectively than anyone had a right to expect".

In 2017, Kristen Yoonsoo Kim noted the scene in which John Milton, portrayed by Lance Henriksen, discusses taking advantage of aspiring actresses.

"[7] In 2020, Adam White wrote that the film was "an angry indictment of sexual misconduct in Hollywood, predatory men and the casting couch".