Dawson's Creek reunion: Those iconic opening credits were an accident

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One of the most iconic aspects of Dawson’s Creek is without a doubt its opening credits. Set to Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait,” the montage featured the core four actors — James Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes, and Michelle Williams — playing around on the beach.

But this was all something that happened by accident. “I remember that halfway through the shoot we realized we needed an opening credits montage,” says creator Kevin Williamson. “And I went, ‘Oh, well we should shoot something.’ And the DP had a broken Bolex camera with real film on his camera truck and I said, ‘Can I take this?’ And in between the scenes, I went around with that sort of broken camera and I filmed all the kids just walking around the beach. I got them in my rental car and I drove them around Wilmington, North Carolina, and we just filmed them moving around and let the film run out, and we created the opening sequence.”

Check out the credits above, and click here to see the cast discovering the Dawson crying meme for the first time.