David Arquette weighs in on Neve Campbell’s exit from Scream 6
"A Scream movie without Sidney is kind of unfortunate, but I understand her decision," Arquette says
Aux News Scream
Woodsboro’s most bravely bumbling cop has spoken out about a Scream 6 movie without Sidney Prescott. David Arquette, who played Dewey Riley in the franchise, addressed Neve Campbell’s announcement that she wouldn’t be in the sixth installment amidst a salary dispute.
Though Arquette says Campbell’s decision was “unfortunate,” he also says understands where she (and conversely, the studio) are coming from.
“I’d love for her to be a part of it,” the actor tells ComicBook. “A Scream movie without Sidney is kind of unfortunate, but I understand her decision. It’s all a business in a way, they have to balance all these elements to fit a budget and produce a film.”
Arquette also tells ComicBook that he doesn’t see Campbell’s exit from this film as a fully closed door on Sidney’s character. “She [can] absolutely be in future ones, but I think it’s up to fans to call for that in the future,” he explains.
Campbell announced her exit from the film on Monday. “Sadly I won’t be making the next Scream film,” she said in a statement. “As a woman I have had to work extremely hard in my career to establish my value, especially when it comes to Scream. I felt the offer that was presented to me did not equate to the value I have brought to the franchise.”
Scream 5, which both Campbell and Arquette returned for, alongside fellow Scream vet Courteney Cox, grossed nearly $140 million worldwide. And, per Deadline, the entire franchise has grossed nearly $744 million over its run, .
Scream 6 is set to begin filming this summer, with a slated related day of March 2023. Scream 5 stars Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Mason Gooding are all set to reprise their roles.
56 Comments
Really Sidney’s been through enough, the odds of this many serial killer situations happening to her were getting cartoony since the third one.
For what it’s worth, she inserted herself into the 5th one. And if you remove the 3rd one (which I do, the same way I ignore Die Hards 2 and 5, and Indiana Jones 4) the series gets a lot more plausible.
WTF is wrong with Die Hard 2? It’s great.
Eh. Scream has an out because it’s so meta. They can both make fun of that very situation, and allow it to be believable, because it’s all essentially copycat killings anyways. Of course each of the copycat loonies would want to take a run THE Sidney Prescott too.
True, the whole thing is a commentary about gaining fame
True, the whole thing is a commentary about gaining fame
Yeah, they have the perfect way to write her out. “Why the fuck would she come back? Every time she comes home someone tries to stab her a bunch.”
It seems like they’re finally getting off the whole “this time, it’s the series’ final hurrah,” thing that they’ve tended to do since Scream 3, so if they’re smart, writing Campbell out is more along the lines of what you’re saying than killing her off-camera. Campbell may have decided not to be part of Scream 6, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want her for Scream 7, or Scream 12.
Could anyone realistically process this much trauma and still be a sort of functional human being?
That’s what I liked about the 2018 Halloween, they just ignore all the other ones and the first one was enough to turn Jamie Lee Curtis into a paranoid lunatic.
That’s what I liked about the 2018 Halloween, they just ignore all the other ones and the first one was enough to turn Jamie Lee Curtis into a paranoid mess.
I’m surprised there isn’t already a comment labelling her as “difficult”, or “a mess”. Have we made a tiny step of progress?
Yours is only the second comment – give it time.
Well, few people gave Robert Duvall shit for refusing to show up in THE GODFATHER, PART III because Paramount didn’t think he was worth $5 Million! They gave Pacino $8 Million, so Duvall logically thought he was worth a bit over half that…..Robert Duvall and Francis Ford Coppola both made it clear it was Paramount who tried to lowball the actor, and both have worked together since.
Maybe, but even if those type of tweets, etc., pop up, she is in Netflix’s David E Kelly show adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer, which is one of Netflix’s more popular shows right now, and she was great in the show so I look forward to seeing more of Neve Campbell on TV.
Maybe? It’s impressively ballsy for her to publicly state that they weren’t offering to pay her enough. But it’s also a horror franchise – having the same actor play a main protagonist in five consecutive entries is practically unheard-of (villains are usually the consistent part of the cast), so it’s not like this is a shocker.
I saw the headline and thought “here we go.” The war on women is in full swing, but it is such a very bad idea
Notorious “difficult mess” Neve Campbell drops out of another movie, surprise surprise.
Really though – does anyone care who is in the cast of Scream? Do people watch it for the plot and continuity? Especially the (I imagine) mostly kids watching it nowadays – why would they really care that some of the cast were in the original movie that was made before they were born? You just want to watch a bunch of teenagers get killed for 90 minutes.
I don’t but I can see why it’s important to have her there in terms of ticket sales. Horror movie late sequels always seem to be low quality cash grabs (until a couple of decades pass and then they’re prestige films again). Having Campbell there makes it seem higher quality and probably more importantly familiar. The producers/filmmakers are probably weighing overhead costs against rolling the dice on box office sales with their shitty movie. Meaning, it’s a shitty movie that’s probably not going to do well so is it worth paying Campbell to slightly increase the chances for profitability? Looks like no.
I rolled my eyes when she stated ‘as a woman’, does that count? 😛
Scream 5 was awful, she was the only redeeming part of it, and I’m glad she got out if they weren’t throwing money at her.
Counterpoint: Scream 5 was pretty good BUT also the most predictable. I thought Scream 4 was the best since the first, and this one had a tough time trying to compete.
Glad you liked it. I thought it was mediocre when I watched it and it’s gotten worse as I thought about it. The group of teens were just absolutely dreadful actors, the dialogue was awful, Woodsboro for the first time felt like it wasn’t a character or a real, populated town (maybe cause of Covid regulations?). Honestly like you said, everything Scream 5 tried to do was done and done far, far better by Scream 4.
Scream 4 is dreadful. An awful Frankenstein creation with dull characters. They threw away Williamson’s script and forced him to walk. Not to mention, it looks like someone smeared Vaseline on the lens for the shoot. I don’t want to shit on anyone’s cornflakes but I’m not sure how one could prefer Marielle Jaffe, Rory Kulkin, and Nico Tortello to the likes of Melissa Barrera, Ortega, Madison, and Savoy Brown.
Quite easily lol
Right, I was so confused by that comment initially I thought they phrased it the wrong way around by accident.
Yeah I guess one day we’ll see great works like Vida or In the Heights from Emma Roberts? Wait? Has a decade past with nothing? Well damn. What about impressive acting in a golden series like Better Things from Nico? No… still nada? Hmm aight. What about Rory doing something as interesting as Yellowjackets? Still nothing. Well damn.
1st rule of remakes: Don’t fuck with the original
David Arquette weighs in
Ok, I’m all braced for something stupid. Now I’ll go read the thing.
Literally what pops into my head every time I see your username
And one of the few reasons AV Club is still vaguely entertaining.
Given the odds of any of his random jokes being racist, I’d demur
Can’t say I remember seeing that.
Thanks for the spoiler that Sidney survived Scream 5! (and 4 and 3, which I never saw…)
Sounds like you’re really invested in the series. Just waiting until the 10-movie 16k box set is released?
Then that’s on you. Go watch a movie.
Sorta felt like they closed the chapter on Sidney’s story in Scream 4. It was the perfect cap to her story. She’s the original. She’s finally out, and then Scream 5 had her married with kids. Let Sidney be happy. …on the other hand, pay Campbell what she’s earned, y’all.
I’m happy if she returns in Scream 10 or whatever. I enjoyed the last film but the struggled trying to balance the core three’s story with the new gen more than Scream 4.
Melissa Barrera was like a black hole of emotion in that movie. Jenny Ortega wasn’t much better. I mostly enjoyed 5 for…I guess the actors who will not be in the next one. I don’t really blame Neve Campbell for holding out for some $$$ to save a movie.
I was, frankly, very surprised that Cox and Campbell even agreed to take part in #5, after it was made clear that the Weinsteins were going to take passive income off the Scream franchise because they did some shady maneuvering to keep that income out of their company’s bankruptcy assets – thereby depriving their victims of that potential lucrative money to be divided among them in their deserved victory.
Now it’s Jamie Kennedy’s time to shine!
Personally and professionally, Never Campbell made the right call here, and the studio should be ashamed at lowballing her.Narratively, I don’t need or really want Sidney to come back. She’s been through a LOT and deserves peace. She’s the rare Final girl/scream queen to make it, and through more than most. The last film was a great passing of the torch
Why would you lowball Sydney?
This is all just an elaborate setup for the shock reveal that Sidney is the killer in Scream 6. After being around so many killing sprees she finally started wondering what all the fuss was about and decided to give it a try herself.
ThAT is exactly what my brother said.
I mean as everyone’s said it makes more sense for Neve Campbell not to return, like now they can focus on the others.
They should have fired Arquette and gave her the difference.
Erm…
Obviously, someone hasn’t actually watched Scream 5…
If he’s back I can’t wait for the reveal and exposition.
It’s all a business in a way
Wait. It is called… show… business…
My god. The answer was right there the whole time.
I wonder if this means that Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby Reed will be the star of the next installment.
It’s probably going to be the main character from the last one. That’s the thing. Sydney wasn’t actually the star of Scream 5.
The article yesterday about Campbell bowing out actually reminded me that I hadn’t seen the newest Scream, which was monetarily successful, so I was curious. I then proceeded to watch it and can’t understand why this is ongoing. It’s not scary. It’s not smart. It’s not meta because it only engages with itself with it’s dumb “rules” that were borne of a couple popular slashers in the 80s. It’s particularly funny that the movie has a character talk about much better recent horror films which ends up being a self own. There was no stakes in the movie. It was easy to see who the killers were from the start, and main characters can be stabbed and shot in the gut and be fine when the plot demands it.
Twist – this is all publicity stunt and not only is Sydney in it, she’s the killer.(be kind of a bummer to have Syd finally go full Scream killer but, y’know, 6th movie in a slasher franchise, that shit has to happen eventually)
she’ll be back when David Gordon Green makes a new Scream trilogy in a few years time 🙂