David Arquette is bringing the original Scream to Akron on October 21, as part of a multi-city tour marking the film’s 30th anniversary. At E.J. Thomas Hall, the event will pair a screening of the 1996 slasher film with a moderated Q&A and VIP photo opportunities focused on Arquette’s role as Deputy Dewey Riley.
A Longstanding Akron Arts Venue
E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall is a University of Akron venue that opened in October 1973, according to The University of Akron. That history places the film screening and live Q&A in an established local performing-arts setting.
Arquette told Cleveland.com he is looking forward to visiting Akron for the first time. The “Behind the Scream” tour stop also brings a family connection to Ohio: Arquette said relatives once performed a vaudeville act in a Toledo theater.
The film’s Ohio ties extend beyond Arquette’s family history. Director Wes Craven, who made the original film from Kevin Williamson’s screenplay, was born in Cleveland, according to Cleveland.com. Classic Monsters has also recounted how Craven’s youth in the city’s Hough neighborhood included an encounter with a passing stranger outside his home, said to have inspired Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
A Character That Almost Didn't Survive
Arquette has said he chose to play Dewey as an authority figure who has trouble earning respect. The character was originally slated to die in the 1996 film, but Craven filmed an alternate ending in which Dewey survives in an ambulance after test audiences responded warmly to Arquette’s performance, according to Wikipedia. The change allowed Dewey to appear in six films in the franchise.
Arquette has credited Craven directly with shaping his approach to the role and to life. He has said Craven mentored him during the making of Scream 2 in 1997 and encouraged him to believe in himself and make choices aligned with his own goals — guidance Arquette has carried well beyond the franchise. It was also on the set of the original Scream that Arquette met Courteney Cox; the two share a 22-year-old daughter.
From Beautiful Girls to WCW and Back
Arquette's career outside Scream has been eclectic. He played Bobby Conway in the 1996 film Beautiful Girls, directed by Ted Demme, and made Dream With the Fishes directly after the original Scream — a film following two people on an adventure to fulfill a bucket list, featuring one character considering ending his life and another battling a life-threatening disease. Arquette has said his own struggles with self-destructive behavior made that project particularly meaningful to him.
Arquette's detour into professional wrestling became one of the more debated chapters of his public life. In April 2000, he won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on WCW Thunder as part of a promotional tie-in for the film Ready to Rumble, later donating his wrestling earnings to the families of injured and deceased professional wrestlers, according to Wikipedia. The title win remains one of wrestling's most scrutinized celebrity moments. Arquette has said the sport itself taught him to stand up for himself, develop confidence, and avoid dangerous situations, and his search for redemption in the ring was later documented in the 2020 feature You Cannot Kill David Arquette, which chronicled his return to independent wrestling despite severe injuries.
A Franchise That Keeps Finding New Fans
Three decades on, Arquette says Scream films continue to bring together longtime fans and new generations. He has recalled fans telling him they watched the original movie on a first date with a future spouse and later watched it again with their own children — a kind of generational handoff he says he feels honored to have been part of. He has also pointed to films like Get Out, Obsession, and work by Ari Aster as evidence of how far horror has evolved since 1996.
That evolution hasn't dented the franchise's commercial muscle. The original Scream was produced on a $15 million budget and grossed $173 million worldwide after its December 1996 debut, according to reporting tied to recent repertory screenings of the classic. Following the February 2026 theatrical release of Scream 7 — directed by Williamson in his franchise directorial debut and starring returning lead Neve Campbell — the overall series crossed $1.1 billion in cumulative global box office.
Arquette's Akron stop follows an earlier tour appearance detailed in Hoodline's Lowell Scream coverage, and arrives weeks after the actor appeared at the Hollywood premiere of The Night Driver during Screamfest's 10-day run. Ahead of the tour, promoter Pepper Entertainment hosted a public Reddit AMA with Arquette in August to connect with horror fans before the multi-state run of dates. For Arquette, the Akron visit folds together family history, wrestling scars, and three decades playing a cop nobody expected to survive the first film — a role he has said he's honored to have carried this far.
