Scream 7 Reuniting Neve Campbell & Kevin Williamson Now Dooms The Franchise
News broke on March 12 that Neve Campbell and director Kevin Williamson are returning to the "Scream" franchise — and in light of recent developments, this actually sucks.
Campbell posted a photo of a script on her Instagram to announce that she and Williamson (who wrote the first few films under Wes Craven's direction) are returning, writing, "Hi All. I'm so excited to announce this news!!! Sidney Prescott is coming back!!!! It's always been such a blast and an honor to get to play Sidney in the Scream movies. My appreciation for these films and for what they have meant to me, has never waned. I'm very happy and proud to say I've been asked, in the most respectful way, to bring Sidney back to the screen and I couldn't be more thrilled!!!" Again, this blows. It's not good news.
Hear us out. The only reason Campbell is returning — after famously leaving the "Scream" franchise over a pay dispute — is because the entire film series is in peril after it booted Melissa Barrera, who played the modern "Scream" protagonist Sam Carpenter, over her comments and stance on the conflict in Gaza. Barrera's co-star Jenna Ortega, who appeared in the films as Sam's half-sister Tara Carpenter, also exited, though it wasn't in response to Barrera's firing. Campbell had a noble and understandable reason for leaving the "Scream" franchise, and she left it in good hands. Swooping in to rescue it now feels disingenuous at best and outright wrong at worst.
Neve Campbell said she only left Scream because she was sticking up for women — this news suggests otherwise
When Neve Campbell exited the "Scream" franchise, she told People in August 2022 that she wasn't offered a high enough paycheck to reprise her role as Sidney Prescott, feeling that a man would have gotten whatever compensation he asked for. "And as a woman in this business, I think it's really important for us to be valued and to fight to be valued," she told the outlet. "I honestly don't believe that if I were a man and had done five installments of a huge blockbuster franchise over 25 years, that the number that I was offered would be the number that would be offered to a man."
This is a perfectly valid stance from Campbell — but now that she's rejoining the franchise (and presumably was offered a big fat check to do so), her comments about women being "valued" in the entertainment industry rings hollow. In the wake of her firing from the "Scream" franchise, Melissa Barrera released a statement in November 2023 condemning both antisemitism and Islamophobia, saying that she "[condemns] hate and prejudice of any kind against any group of people," but it's not as if Spyglass Productions saw fit to reverse their decision; they simply punished her for speaking out. Campbell is welcome to her paycheck, but fans should be aware that she's not supporting Barrera by cashing it.
What new storylines could Scream possibly cook up for Sidney Prescott at this point?
At this point, the idea of Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott returning to the "Scream" franchise feels exhausting. Campbell appeared in the first five "Scream" movies and apparently will return for the seventh, but 2023's "Scream 6" set up an entirely new story without Sidney — and it was an incredible new direction for the series. With Barrera and Ortega as the dual leads, the iconic series morphed into something more interesting, widening the perspective and creating a fascinating through line focusing on intergenerational trauma. Now? Sidney will just evade a different Ghostface and then, ostensibly, kill him (or her, or them).
Sidney's storyline is one marked by suffering. Before we even meet her in the first "Scream" movie, her mother was brutally murdered ... and at the end of that movie, she finds out her own boyfriend did the deed. She's then terrorized for several films, and in "Scream 4" and "Scream" (the title of the fifth film), she has to contend with a younger generation that still wants her dead. Short of Matthew Lillard's (whose Ghostface is the most ruthless) Stu Macher rising from the dead to torment Sidney some more, it feels like her story has come to an end; she got to leave Woodsboro behind with her internal organs and dignity intact. Not only is Campbell morally bankrupt for returning to "Scream," but whatever story Kevin Williamson cooks up will be narratively bankrupt to boot.