Cotton Weary, played by Liev Schreiber, is a character who appears throughout the Scream film series.
Cotton was the original suspect in the rape and murder of Maureen Prescott, Sidney's mother. He was identified by Sidney, who found her mother's body after seeing someone she believed to be Cotton leaving her home. In Scream, it is revealed that Maureen was having an affair with Cotton before she was murdered by Billy Loomis and Stu Macher, who then planted evidence to frame Cotton.
In Scream 2, Cotton attempts to gain fame from his incarceration and exoneration for Maureen's murder, traveling to Windsor College to convince Sidney to agree to an interview. He later saves Sidney when she is about to be murdered by Mrs. Loomis, one of the Ghostface killers in Scream 2.
In Scream 3, Cotton has become famous for his exploits, hosting his own talk show. He and his girlfriend Christine Hamilton are attacked by the latest Ghostface, who demands to know the whereabouts of Sidney Prescott after she goes into hiding. When Cotton refuses to tell, Ghostface kills him.
In the original Scream 2 script, Cotton was captured by the real Ghostface killers, Derek, Hallie and Mrs. Loomis. After Mrs. Loomis kills Derek and Hallie, she intends to frame Cotton for the recent murder spree, but he attacks and stabs her to death. He then tries to take revenge on Sidney for his false imprisonment, noting that the evidence points to him being an innocent victim. He and Sidney stab each other, but their fates have not been revealed. Following the leak of the script on the Internet, extensive rewrites were undertaken, changing this plot.