Hayden Panettiere returning for Scream 7?
Hayden Panettiere made the character Kirby Reed a fan favorite with her performance in 2011’s Scream 4, so fans were bummed when it appeared that she had been killed near the end of that movie – and over the years, they kept hope alive that she might return to the franchise someday. That return came a dozen years later in Scream VI, where Kirby was revealed to be alive, well, and an FBI agent. Now, Entertainment Weekly has casually dropped the news that Panettiere will be reprising the role of Kirby Reed in Scream 7, something which has not been officially announced up to this point.
In a “Where Are They Now?” article focused on the cast of the TV series Nashville, Entertainment Weekly mentioned this about Panettiere: “Next, she’ll team up with Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott for Scream 7 (2026).“
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.)
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. David Arquette is also back as the dearly departed Dewey. 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.
Scream 7 is set to reach theatres on February 27, 2026. Have you been hoping to see Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby Reed in the film? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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