Neve Campbell says she's open to a "respectful offer" to come save Scream from itself
"I would not be surprised to get a call," said Campbell, who skipped last year's Scream VI over a high-profile pay dispute
Neve Campbell has stated that she’s open to a “respectful offer” to return to the Scream franchise for its seventh installment—which is damned polite of her, we’d say, given that the series has now proven it can go for exactly one movie without her without dramatically self-destructing.
If you’d asked us six months ago whether Scream needed saving from itself, we would have been a lot more dubious—but that was before a one-two casting collapse in November 2023, with producers Spyglass firing star Melissa Barrera for “hate speech” after she spoke in support of Palestinians during the recent conflicts in Gaza, followed swiftly by news that Wednesday star Jenna Ortega had apparently been out of the equation on the series’ seventh film for months. A few weeks later, the situation moved into “full garbage fire” status when director Christopher Landon also departed the film, calling it a “nightmare,” and Scream VII is now just sort of smoldering, instead of hard at work making its creators that “low budget in, big box office out” magic that slasher movies are so good at.
Which brings us back to Campbell, who famously declined to be in 2023's Scream VI, after saying the pay she was offered to appear “did not equate to the value I have brought to the franchise.” And while she recently told The Hollywood Reporter that no one in the franchise has reached out to her just yet, “I would not be surprised to get a call… I know things are spinning at the moment, and I would imagine they are spinning at the top trying to figure out what they’re going to do.”
At the same time, though, nobody had better try to cheap out: “I made a strong statement a few years ago,” Campbell added, “Which is I did not believe that the way that I was treated would’ve happened if I had been a male and that I deserve a certain thing for having carried this franchise for as long as I have… So, if they were to come back to me, it would have to be with a respectful offer that I felt was in keeping with what I bring to this franchise.”
It’s worth noting that Scream, and Campbell’s character, Sydney Prescott, are kind of strange in this regard. Most horror franchises tend to revolve around their villains, with heroes treated as largely disposable, rarely lasting more than one or two films. But Sydney has persisted. Because the Scream movies tend to employ some “Whodunnit?” elements into their DNA—with each film centering on the question of who’s wearing the Ghostface mask this time—it’s relied on Campbell, Courtney Cox, and (until recently) David Arquette to anchor things and give audiences recognizable faces to cling to. It’s also allowed Campbell to do more with her character than any other “final girl” in slasher history (except maybe Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode), taking the character, across almost 30 years of movie-making, from a frightened teen into a hardened, badass survivor. And while Scream VI suggested the movies could get by without her… that was before two of its biggest stars abruptly parted ways with it.