Scream’s box-office success in 1996 made teen horror a big opportunity for young stars and the agents representing them. Studios wanted recognizable faces who could bring teenage viewers to theaters, and popular TV shows, especially those on WB and UPN, offered a ready pool of talent.
That helps explain the concentration of names like Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Joshua Jackson in the era’s horror casts. Familiar TV actors and rising film stars became part of the selling point.
Horror had already given generations of newcomers a way into movies. But after a sluggish stretch in the early-to-mid 1990s, Scream helped make the genre commercially attractive again, particularly teen slashers. Bigger budgets and more polished productions gave young actors and their representatives more reason to pursue those roles, with the prospect of reaching a wider audience.
The studio rush brought I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Urban Legend (1998), The Faculty (1998), Disturbing Behavior (1998) and Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999). Within a few years of Scream, studios had built a wave of teen horror around actors their intended audience already knew.
