Scream 7: Kevin Williamson and Neve Campbell aim to bring back the suspense of the original film

Spyglass Media and Paramount Pictures once intended to make a Scream 7 that would have starred Scream (2022) and Scream VI leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, with Freaky and Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon at the helm. But then Ortega allegedly asked for a substantial pay raise – and as we saw when Neve Campbell dropped out of Scream VI due to a pay dispute, these pay issues don’t tend to work out. Then Barrera was fired from the project after comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war didn’t go over well with executives at Spyglass. Landon dropped out the of the project soon after. So Scream 7 has been re-developed, Campbell has signed on to return as franchise heroine Sidney Prescott, back in the lead role, while Kevin Williamson, who wrote the screenplay for the original Scream, directs the film from a screenplay by 2022’s Scream and Scream VI writer Guy Busick, who crafted the story with his co-writer on the fifth and sixth films, James Vanderbilt. (Vanderbilt is also a producer on the most recent sequels.)  In the newly released book Your Favorite Scary Movie: How the Scream Films Rewrote the Rules of Horror by Ashley Cullins (pick up a copy HERE), Williamson is quoted as saying that he and Campbell are aiming to bring the suspense of the original Scream back in the new sequel.

Neve Campbell is joined in the cast by Isabel May of the Yellowstone prequel 1883, who has signed on to play Sidney’s daughter; Mckenna Grace of the Ghostbusters franchise, Grace’s Ghostbusters co-star Celeste O’Connor, Gen V‘s Asa Germann, The Fabelmans‘ Sam Rechner, Pitch Perfect‘s Anna Camp, Riverdale‘s Mark Consuelos, fellow franchise star Courteney Cox, who reprises the role of reporter / author Gale Weathers, Joel McHale (Community) as Sidney’s husband Mark Evans, and Ethan Embray (The Devil’s Candy). Oddly, Matthew Lillard and Scott Foley, who played Ghostface killers in the original Scream and Scream 3, respectively, and did not appear to make it out of those movies alive, are also in the cast. Although two of the “core four” characters established in the previous two movies are no longer around, Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown are back as Chad Meeks-Martin and Mindy Meeks-Martin.

Williamson told Cullins, with thanks to our friends at Bloody Disgusting for the transcription, “Neve wants to go back to the first one and find the suspense and really concentrate on scary and not bloody. She was smart. She goes, ‘This is the time to do it because we’re moving away from New York. We’re going back to Sidney’s life. This is the time to reset a little bit. And I’m like, ‘Yup, let’s do it.’” And if you’re worried that they might try to kill Sidney off or even try turn her into a killer, it doesn’t sound like that’s in the cards. Williamson said, “I have made it very clear, I think publicly too, that Sidney has been through so much torment, and she has been through so much trauma, that to give her anything less than a happy ending is mean. It’s just sacrilegious.“

While they’re prioritizing suspense over bloodshed, Gooding has previously promised that Scream 7 will deliver a brutal Ghostface and some gross, gory special effects.

Are you looking forward to seeing if they succeed in their attempt to make Scream 7 as suspenseful as the original? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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