A lot has changed in between Sixth scream and Screaming 7.
The 2023 film saw longtime actress Neve Campbell withdraw after “the offer that was made to me was not equal to the value that I brought to the franchise,” she said at the time; She’s back now, having noted that she’s “really grateful that the studio listened to me when I talked about the pay discrepancy.”
However, Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, who starred in the fifth and sixth films, did not return, as Barrera was fired over posts about the Gaza war made by Spyglass, the company behind the film. Screaming privilege, is considered anti-Semitic. Ortega and director Christopher Landon left soon after. (In response to that shooting, pro-Palestine protesters marched outside the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Wednesday.)
That meant a big pivot, as the films were heavily reliant on these two younger stars. Cue Kevin Williamson, who wrote three of the former Screaming films and helmed Seventh Place as director and co-writer.
“I got a call from one of the producers, William [Sherak]“Well, we’ll have to come up with something else,” Williamson said. Hollywood Reporter In the first show. Naturally, this became much easier once they learned that Campbell had agreed to return.
“I’ve known Neve for 30 years, and I knew what she wanted. Yes, there was a dispute about salary and her pay, but she’s also an actress and she wants to act. She wants a role,” he explained. “So we wanted to make a film centered around Sidney and catch up with Sidney Prescott after all these years and see what she’s been up to.”
This includes exploring, “What is her family like? What would happen if she had a daughter who was the same age she was when this all started? How does she raise herself, and how does she talk about the past?” Williamson continued. “She’s so traumatized, and every conversation Sidney has ends in blood and guts. ‘Mom, what was your first time like?’ ‘Well, it was the night all my friends were killed.’ ‘What was college like?’ ‘Oh, well, everyone was killed their first semester.'” It’s not something you want to talk about, but if you have a daughter who desperately wants to connect with you, that’s the conflict we establish in the film.
Isabel May plays Campbell’s daughter in the film, crediting the veteran actress with advice on dealing with fans of the franchise: “She told me to be aware of the fact that there’s a huge fan base that not only loves these movies, but cherishes them, and that’s important to them. There’s a certain weight to that and I try to have some fun and enjoy it and not think about that because I just want to do my best and make them happy.”
The film also welcomes the return of a number of actors whose characters have previously died, including David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, and Scott Foley. Foley’s Roman Bridger was killed off in the third film, so he admitted that getting the call to return was “weird and unexpected. It pushed him away, as you should when a character gets shot in the forehead – you think, understandably, that they’re not coming back.”
Foley even admitted that he doesn’t know exactly how he’ll direct the film, joking, “Nobody explained things to me, and I’m still not sure how it’s going to go because I haven’t seen the movie or read the script. So I’m flying blind here,” but he’s confident Williamson will make it “scary, funny and surprising. He redefined the genre with the first movie and he’s been able to keep it going.”
Screaming 7 It hits theaters on Friday.
