Scream apparently found the money to get Neve Campbell back

Less than two years after declining to return to the Scream franchise over a salary dispute, original final girl Neve Campbell announced on Instagram that she will return for the series’ upcoming seventh film.

“It’s always been such a blast and an honor to get to play Sidney in the Scream movies. My appreciation for these films and for what they have meant to me, has never waned,” she wrote, in part. “I’m very happy and proud to say I’ve been asked, in the most respectful way, to bring Sidney back to the screen and I couldn’t be more thrilled!!!”

Beyond the confirmation of her own return, Campbell also shared that Kevin Williamson, who wrote Screams one, two, and four will be returning to the franchise as a director. Guy Busick, who wrote 2022's Scream (colloquially known as Scream 5) and 2023's Scream 6, is returning again for the latest script.

The returns of both Campbell and Williamson are undeniably controversial; not just because of the actor’s previous exit from the film, but for the manner in which the franchise’s previous leads, Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, left the film. Barrera was let go from the film in November after her pro-Palestine Instagram posts were deemed “hate speech” by Spyglass Media; Ortega, who played Tara Carpenter, half-sister to Barerra’s Sam Carpenter, confirmed her own exit just a day later. Reportedly, her exit had been in the works long before Barerra’s dismissal, presumably due to Ortega’s rising star and busy schedule with Wednesday and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Beyond all that, Scream 7 also lost its initial director, Christopher Landon, in December, who tweeted that the film “was a dream job that turned into a nightmare.” For a while, it had seemed (maybe for the best!) that the seventh entry in the franchise would not end up being a film at all. Apparently, Spyglass Media found the respect (and cash) that Campbell needed to save their franchise.