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 now Scream 7 has been re-developed, and it was recently announced that Campbell is returning to the lead as franchise heroine Sidney Prescott. We’ve heard that executives were hoping to get her Scream 3 co-star Patrick Dempsey to join her in this one, reprising the role of LAPD Detective Mark Kincaid – and industry scooper Daniel Richtman hears that Dempsey is “in talks” to do just that. Richtman’s sources also claim that Courteney Cox is locked in to return as author and reporter Gale Weathers… which would make sense, because Cox has never missed out on any of these movies.

Kevin Williamson, who wrote the screenplay for the original Scream, is set to direct this new sequel. In addition to writing the original Scream, Williamson has also written I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, The Faculty, and Halloween H20 (where his script contributions were uncredited). He wrote the initial drafts of Scream 3 and Scream 4, then those both received some major rewrites. For Scream 7, he’ll be working 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.) Williamson made his directing debut with the 1999 thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Twenty-five years later, Scream 7 will be his second directing credit.

Are you hoping to see Courteney Cox and Patrick Dempsey share the screen with Neve Campbell (again) in Scream 7? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.

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