Fan-Favorite Fox Show’s Creator Teases Revival After It Was Canceled Way Too Soon

Could Ryan Murphy’s queens be screaming on the screen again soon?

Murphy co-created the comedy-horror series Scream Queens with Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan in 2015. It starred several big names who were famous or soon to be famous, like Emma Roberts, Ariana Grande, Glen Powell, Keke Palmer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lea Michele, and Abigail Breslin, and ran for two seasons on FOX before getting a surprising cancellation.

Now, in a new interview, the recently Emmy-nominated Brennan is sharing his plans of revisiting both Scream Queens and the musical comedy Glee with Murphy.

“I think that is the layup of all layups. Honestly, both shows were canceled prematurely, particularly Scream Queens,” Brennan told THR. “It was really at the end of network [television] and the rise of streaming. A network executive could have been forgiven for being like, ‘The ratings keep going down.’ But they would do this all the time. They’d cancel a show that was getting like a one and then replace it with something that got a point seven, and now they would give their eyeteeth for the ratings we were getting then.”

Scream Queens followed Chanel Oberlin (Roberts) and her five friends, the group known as “The Chanels,” as they are hounded by their college’s Dean, Cathy Munsch (Curtis). Eventually, the conflict re-ignites a 20-year murder mystery, as a serial killer from generations’ past dressed like the school’s mascot starts murdering the cast one by one. The second season featured a new killer and new cast additions, like John Stamos and Taylor Lautner.

Brennan shared his plans for a third season, which was originally set to riff on one of the most iconic horror movies of all time.

“It was such a fun, funny show. And we had really good ideas for where it could go next… what was great about that show was that you get to send up all the horror tropes,” he said. “The first one was college girls. The second one was macabre body horror, a hospital setting, but actually, we were tasked with putting it in that section. What we were going to do in the second season, which I would probably do in a third, would be to set it at a camp. Scream Queens would be set at a Friday the 13th camp.”

Brennan talked about the rise to fame of many of the show’s stars, especially Glen Powell, who appeared in the new series as Roberts’ boyfriend Chad but is now an A-lister with starring roles in movies like Twisters and Top Gun: Maverick.

“I mean, Glen Powell, who’s now the movie star of all movie stars, every time I see him, he’s like, ‘You know the thing I get remembered for the most? It’s Chad Radwell,’” Brennan says.