Christopher Landon was originally set to direct\u00a0Scream 7, and fans responded\u00a0positively to the news. He’d found the right balance of\u00a0horror and comedy in\u00a0Happy Death Day\u00a0and\u00a0Freaky, and delivered some huge\u00a0scares with his work on the\u00a0Paranormal Activity\u00a0series.<\/p>\n
However, when the lead of the modern\u00a0Scream\u00a0franchise,\u00a0Melissa Barrera, was unceremoniously fired for weighing in\u00a0on the Israel\/Palestine conflict on social media, the movie, in its original form,\u00a0fell apart.\u00a0Jenna Ortega also walked away, and Landon wasn’t too far behind her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spyglass Media Group convinced Kevin\u00a0Williamson (who wrote the first two movies and directed the third and fourth instalments) to return to\u00a0Scream\u00a0for this seventh chapter and enlisted original cast members Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Scott Foley, and Matthew Lillard to make\u00a0up for Barrera and Ortega being absent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first trailer for Scream 7 received a positive response, and all signs point to this next chapter being “classic” Scream. Talking to us about his role in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,\u00a0Lillard\u2014who reprises his role as Stuart “Stu” Macher\u2014talked about returning to one of his most iconic roles.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, they didn’t really have to sell me,” the actor tells us in the video below.\u00a0“It was one of those things where I got a call from Kevin Williams in the middle of the day when I was on a long walk, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s weird, he’s calling me. He doesn’t call me.’ I’d just seen him three weeks earlier, so I picked up and said, ‘Why are you calling me?’ He said, ‘Come back.'”<\/p>\n
“It was a shock. I never expected it. In fact, he was out saying, ‘Stu doesn’t come back and the franchise doesn’t need Lillard.’ That was so mean! [Laughs] That’s my bit. I’ve been on the circuit talking about Stu coming back. It was part of my schtick.”<\/p>\n
“[Kevin]\u00a0pitched\u00a0the idea, I was excited to read it, and I got the script a couple of weeks later,” Lillard continued. “I think it’s great. Wes [Craven] would be very proud. It’s in the lines of what the franchise used to be. I think the franchise was in a great place with that new team. Melissa was fantastic, the boys were great, and Radio Silence were fantastic directors.”<\/p>\n
Elaborating on what fans can expect from Scream 7, he revealed, “Kevin’s take is a little more traditional in terms of the Scream franchise, and I think people are going to be excited. I hope they are. Early on, testing has been through the roof, which is thrilling. I’m excited to see what happens.”<\/p>\n
The newer Scream movies did a great job of putting\u00a0the slasher franchise back on the map while focusing on\u00a0a fresh cast. However,\u00a0fans were always eager to see some returning faces join them.<\/p>\n
With this next instalment likely to be heavy on nostalgia, it should hit all the right notes. There’s also a huge amount of intrigue surrounding how these long-dead characters return, with Stu’s resurrection one of the biggest question marks as of now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You can hear more from Lillard on Scream 7\u00a0in the player below.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When a new Ghostface killer emerges in the quiet town where Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has built a new life,\u00a0her darkest fears are realised as her daughter (Isabel May) becomes the next target. Determined to protect her family, Sidney must face the horrors of her past to put an end to the bloodshed once and for all.<\/p>\n
Joel McHale joins the cast of\u00a0Scream 7\u00a0as Sidney’s husband, Mark Evans. Scott Foley, who played Roman Bridger in\u00a0Scream 3, is also returning, alongside franchise veterans Matthew Lillard and\u00a0David Arquette. As we’re sure you know, their respective characters are dead, so let the speculation commence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Joining them in the movie will be Anna Camp, Mark Consuelos, Ethan Embry, Asa Germann, Mckenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Michelle Randolph, and Jimmy Tatro.<\/p>\n
Scream\u00a0creator and original writer Kevin Williamson steps behind the camera for the first time to direct\u00a0Scream 7.\u00a0Guy Busick wrote the screenplay, based on\u00a0a story by Busick and James Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n
Scream 7\u00a0arrives in theaters on February 27, 2026.\u00a0Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 arrives in theaters on December 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Landon was originally set to direct\u00a0Scream 7, and fans responded\u00a0positively to the news. He’d found the right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,97212,206,50916],"class_list":{"0":"post-302161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-matthew-lillard","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-scream-7"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}