While writing the original Scream script, Kevin Williamson also drafted two five-page treatments for potential sequels, hoping to entice buyers with the prospect of purchasing a whole franchise rather than just a single film.

Wes Craven was initially hesitant to return as director, worried about being 'trapped' by a Scream franchise, and the filmmakers approached Robert Rodriguez to direct Scream 2, but Craven ultimately changed his mind and Rodriguez left to direct The Faculty instead.

Williamson's original 42-page outline for the sequel involved four different killers: Derek, Hallie, Cotton Weary, and Nancy Loomis, the mother of one of the original film's killers.

Neve Campbell had already been contracted to reprise her role as Sidney Prescott in a potential sequel before filming even began on the first Scream film.

According to Jamie Kennedy, Tobey Maguire was offered the role of Mickey but turned it down; the part eventually went to Timothy Olyphant in his first leading feature film role.

Sarah Michelle Gellar agreed to appear in Scream 2 without having read the script, based purely on the success of the first film, while juggling filming of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Tori Spelling was cast to play 'Stab Sidney' as a direct callback to a sarcastic line in the original Scream where Campbell's character joked she would be played by Spelling in a movie about her life; Craven said Spelling was a good sport about the joke.

Rebecca Gayheart had originally auditioned for the role of Tatum Riley in the first Scream, then auditioned multiple times for Scream 2 for the roles of Cici Cooper, Hallie, and Maureen Evans before finally landing the role of sorority sister Lois.

Atlanta, Georgia and Los Angeles were used to stand in for the film's fictional Ohio setting, with the opening theater scene shot at the Vista Theater in Hollywood and Agnes Scott College and UCLA representing the fictional Windsor College.

Before filming even started, the full script was leaked onto the Internet by one of the film's extras, revealing the killers' identities, forcing extensive rewrites during production; this is considered the first instance of a film significantly affected by an internet leak.

To combat leaks, three different 'dummy' endings were written and distributed to cast and crew as decoys, including a fake version where Dewey was revealed as the killer; actors only received the real killer-reveal pages on the day those scenes were shot.

Because of the leak and the rushed six-month production schedule, script pages were sometimes only completed on the day of filming, forcing Craven to develop and improvise certain scenes on set.

To try to manipulate the MPAA into an R-rating, Craven submitted a deliberately over-violent cut featuring extra gore, including three stabs to the ear for Phil Stevens instead of one and an extended throat-slashing death for Randy Meeks, hoping the ratings board would cut the excess while approving the footage they actually wanted to keep.

Composer Marco Beltrami's original theme for Dewey was replaced in the final film by a cue from Hans Zimmer's score for Broken Arrow (1996), after test audiences responded strongly to the Zimmer piece, which had originally been used only as a temporary placeholder.

Danny Elfman contributed a specially written choral track, 'Cassandra Aria,' which plays during a school play scene and returns as a reprise in the film's finale.

Anticipating Scream 2's box office strength, the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies and James Cameron's Titanic were both moved from their planned December 12 release date to avoid competing with it.

Tori Spelling received a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst New Star for her brief cameo as 'Stab Sidney,' tied with her role in The House of Yes that same year.