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Why Scream creator Kevin Williamson quit TV, despite his success with The Vampire Diaries, Dawson's Creek, and The Following
What led the man behind Dawson's Creek and The Vampire Diaries to quit TV? He was making shows he didn't want to watch
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For awhile, it felt as if screenwriter Kevin Williamson was everywhere — not only was he the mastermind behind the Scream movie franchise and the creator of the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, but he was seemingly ubiquitous on the small screen too, thanks to creating Dawson’s Creek, The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle, short-lived Kevin Bacon drama The Following, and countless others. And then… well, he seemed to disappear from the screen for awhile. That was intentional, it turns out.
“I was in a deal at Warner Bros. where you have to sing for your supper a little bit, in terms of making a pilot every season. And if you don’t have a pilot, then, what good are you? So I realized I didn’t have a pilot to show,” Williamson told IndieWire while (ironically) promoting his return to the small screen with 2025’s Netflix series The Waterfront. “I was doing TV shows I didn’t want to do. I was making shows I wouldn’t watch. And as soon as you start doing that, you’re in trouble. So I stopped and I quit, and I said, ‘No more TV.’”
Of course, it didn’t stick — Williamson seemingly rediscovered his mojo and currently has no less than three different shows in various stages of development and production. In addition to Netflix’s The Waterfront (which only lasted one season on the streamer), he has adaptations of the novel The It Girl, and the movies Rear Window and The Game, all in the works with Universal Television, according to reports.
That’s in addition to the fact that Scream 7 — which he’s writing and directing — is set for release February 27. Perhaps it’s coincidence, perhaps it’s nostalgia, but pretty soon, it might feel like Kevin Williamson is back to take over pop culture one more time.
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