Scream Writer Confirms Original Plans for Scream 5 & 6

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It’s been over ten years since Scream 4 hit theaters, but the fifth installment is finally here. The new movie, which is simply titled Scream, was released last night and it’s been met with mostly positive reviews from critics and audiences alike. The new horror film is currently up on Rotten Tomatoes with a 76% critics score and an 89% audience score. The new movie is the first of the franchise that wasn’t helmed by the late, great Wes Craven. Ready or Not directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett stepped in with original Scream writer Kevin Williamson producing. In a recent interview with Bloody Disgusting, Williamson revealed the original plans for the fifth and even sixth Scream movies. At one point, Scream 4’s Jill (Emma Roberts) was supposed to return.

“Jill went to college, and then murders started on the campus. And it was a killer who knew she was the killer from the last film. So the killer kept trying to expose her, so she would have to kill to keep it covered up. So it was killer meets killer. And Sidney [Neve Campbell] was a professor at that school,” Williamson shared. “Scream 6 was gonna answer whatever happened between Dewey [David Arquette] and Gale [Courteney Cox] … Sidney was in it, but it was more focused on Gale’s storyline.”

During a recent virtual reunion event, Williamson spoke about doing Craven proud with the new film.

“I had been really apprehensive about doing one of these films without Wes,” the writer noted. “The directors actually sent me a letter when the offer was sent and said the reason they are directors is because of Wes. So they’re even so honored to even be asked to make this film, and that they’re such huge fans of him and the films themselves, and of the cast, and that they really wanted to honor his voice, which I really, really believe they did.”

In addition to Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette, Scream will see the return of Scream 4’s Marley Shelton as Deputy Judy Hicks. Jack Quaid leads an extended roster of newcomers that will appear in the film alongside Melissa Barrera, Dylan Minnette, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding, Kyle Gallner, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Mikey Madison.

What are your thoughts on the original idea for the new Scream? Do you wish Emma Roberts would have returned or do you prefer the new story? Tell us in the comments!

The new Scream is now playing in theaters.

Scream Writer Comments on New Movie’s Rian Johnson Shoutout

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Full spoilers for the new Scream follow! After 2011’s Scream 4 lampooned horror movie remakes fans were very curious where the 2022 Scream movie would set its sights. Though the film does make a few references to modern terms like “elevated horror” and critical darlings like The Babadook, the main thesis for Scream (2022) is fandom entitlement, and the way they set this all up is by invoking one figure that knows a little something about being on the receiving end of fan scorn, Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson. Though his name is never said, the Academy Award nominated writer/director is central figure to the movie’s premise. Again, spoilers!

As fans of the Scream franchise know, there’s an ongoing “movie within the movie” with the “Stab” movies. Based on the book by Gale Weathers, the Stab movies started out as hilarious riffs on the films as the sequels continued (Scream 2 begins with the premiere of Stab, Scream 3 is set around the production of Stab 3, and Scream 4 begins with an extended opening showing how ridiculous the series got with Stab 6 and Stab 7). In the new Scream however, the eighth film in the Stab series was released in the not-too-distant past and drew the ire of “hardcore” and “true” “fans” of the franchise. When dropping the seeds for this as a catlyst for the plot, the characters tease that this eighth stab movie was the one ‘by the Knives Out guy," not only referencing Rian Johnson without saying his name but drawing a parallel to his work in the Star Wars franchise as The Last Jedi was Episode 8 in the main series.

In a new interview, Scream co-writer James Vanderbilt opened up about the decision to use Johnson’s status within some fandom circles as a plot device, telling The Wrap:

“We loved the idea that someone had made one that was not well received. Much like certain directors have made big IP movies that fandoms have rejected in an enormous way. There is a very tiny percentage of people who feel such an ownership over an IP and have such anger toward people that if they don’t do things exactly the way they want to, spew this [stuff], and that feels like something that didn’t exist 10 years ago.”

“I think watching how people attacked him as a person was, oh we’re in new territory here,” Vanderbilt added. “In ‘Scream’ 1 they talk about Wes Carpenter movies, in ‘Scream 2’ they talk about Robert Rodriguez directed Stab. There is a great tradition of commenting on other filmmakers who are peers of the time, and that felt like a very natural thing. Rian directed this big IP that was divisive. We felt like if someone directed the ‘Stab’ movie and it were divisive, it would be fun if it were Rian.”

To his credit, Johnson seems amused by the joke, retweeting a meme about it on Twitter after the film opened.

Scream is now playing in theaters.

The Unexpected Gift of ‘Scream 4’! [Horror Queers Podcast]

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F*ck with the Original / Hayden Panettiere Is Always Right.

It just wouldn’t be a new year without Scream, right? After celebrating the OG Scream on its 25th anniversary back in December (along with seasonal treats like Batman Returns, Fear No Evil, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Witchboard‘s 35th anniversary), Trace and I are FINALLY discussing one of our fave meta films. And we had so much to say, we had to break it into 2 (!) episodes!

In Scream 4 (2011), writer Kevin Williamson returns to the franchise and Wes Craven directs one last time as Sidney (Neve Campbell) returns to Woodsboro as a new slate of murders begin. While Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) tries to dissuade his wife Gale (Courteney Cox) to stay out of the investigation, high schoolers Jill (Emma Roberts), Kirby (Hayden Panettiere), Trevor (Nico Tortorella), Robbie (Erik Knudsen) and Charlie (Rory Culkin) are caught in the cross-hairs of a new killing spree.

So which one (or two) of them is the murderer?

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 159 – Scream 4 (2011)

Part 1

This is not f*cking Trevor, but it is a new year and that means we’re covering another Scream film! To kick off our fourth year(!!!), we’re finally (finally!) covering Wes Craven’s Scream 4 (2011) in a discussion that proved so big we had to split it in two!

Join us as we travel back to Woodsboro to discuss the troubled production (Weinstein woes, rewrites, reshoots, etc.) before Trace’s better half Ari Drew pops in to discuss the ins & outs of one of the screenplay’s early drafts.

Plus: we rake some of Scream 4‘s harshest critics across the coals, review some of those last-minute casting changes and discuss the reappraisal that the film has seen over the past few years.

Part 2

Ready for seconds? In Part 2 of our super-sized discussion on Scream 4, we are going through the iconic film beat by beat and deleted scene by deleted scene.

Expect plenty of praise for the women: Marley Shelton, Alison Brie, Courteney Cox, Neve Campbell, Hayden Panettiere, and, of course, Emma Roberts, who absolutely steals the show as Jill Roberts.

Plus: our reactions to the increased gore, Joe’s continued disdain for Britt Robertson, Trace’s fave Ghostface & Jill line readings, debates about Robbie’s queerness and why this film is the gift that just keeps giving.

Cross out Scream 4!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re kicking off a new series called “under seen or underrated” with Canadian rape revenge/exploitation film American Mary (2012). CW: sexual assault & torture

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 156+ hours of additional content! This month, we’re covering the new Scream (2022), visually impaired thriller See For Me and Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho. Plus: the results of the 2021 Hereditaries, our version of the horror Oscars, and an audio commentary on last year’s delightful Psycho Goreman!

Neve Campbell’s Net Worth Includes Her Original ‘Scream’ Salary—Here’s What She Made Then Vs. Now

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Scream queen. Over 25 years after becoming a global sensation thanks to Scream, Neve Campbell’s net worth has continued to thrive. But her salary over the years for each of the Scream movies might surprise you.

Long before starring in Scream, Campbell—whose full name is Neve Adrianne Campbell—was born in October 1973 in Guelph, Ontario. She grew up in the Canadian town alongside her three brothers Christian, Alex and Damian. Her mother Marnie was a yoga instructor and psychologist from Amsterdam, while her father Gerry immigrated from Glasgow, Scotland to Canada to teach high school drama classes. While Campbell’s parents divorced when she was only two years old, she was still inspired by the pair’s creative pursuits. In fact, Campbell came from a long line of performers: Her maternal grandparents owned a theater company in the Netherlands, whereas her grandparents on her father’s side were also actors.

When she was six years old, Campbell witnessed a performance of The Nutcracker that would change her life. The budding performer enrolled at the Erinvale School of Dance to study ballet after the performance, before eventually transferring to the National Ballet School of Canada, where she trained and performed in productions of The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. But after suffering a series of dance-related injuries, Campbell decided to make another career-defining move at the age of 15, when she turned to acting instead. She went on to study theatre at the John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute in Guelph, where she starred in local productions of The Phantom of the Opera.

In the early ‘90s, Campbell began branching out to film and television. Her on-screen debut came in 1991 after working on a Coca-Cola commercial. Later that year, Campbell landed an uncredited guest appearance on the show My Secret Identity. The following year, she appeared as Laura Capelli in an episode of The Kids in the Hall before landing her first lead role as Daisy in the Canadian drama series Catwalk. She later appeared as a guest on several Canadian TV series, including 1994’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

After landing a number of roles in Canada, Campbell relocated to the United States to make her big break. In 1994, she landed the role of orphaned teen Julia Salinger on the Fox drama series Party of Five, which aired until 2000. She emerged from the series as a teen idol, earning a Teen Choice Awards nomination for Choice TV actress and a Golden Globe Award alongside her cast for Best Drama in 1996. While on the show, Campbell also landed her first feature film role in the supernatural blockbuster, The Craft, which premiered in 1996.

But Campbell’s biggest role to date has to be her role as Sidney Prescott in Wes Craven’s Scream. The film—which remains the highest-grossing slasher film in decades—launched an entire franchise starring Campbell and other original cast members such as Courteney Cox and David Arquette in a series of sequel films, including 1997’s Scream 2, 2000’s Scream 3, 2011’s Scream 4 and 2022’s Scream, otherwise informally known as Scream 5. For her role in the film series, Campbell has earned a number of awards—not to mention, a hefty boost to her net worth.

So, what is Neve Campbell’s net worth today? For everything we know about how much Neve Campbell has earned from her role in the Scream franchise and more, just keep on reading below.

How much did Neve Campbell earn from Scream?

Neve Campbell has starred as scream queen Sidney Prescott in every installment of the Scream franchise to date—and she has earned a pretty penny while doing so.

When Scream premiered in 1996, the film was an instant financial and critical triumph. The first film in the series generated over $173 million at the global box office, making it the highest-grossing slasher film until the release of Halloween in 2018. In 1997, Campbell reprised her role in Scream 2, which grossed over $170 million at the box office. Scream 3, by comparison, made slightly less when it premiered in 2000. The film brought in over $160 million and marked a temporary end to the saga until the franchise’s return over a decade later with 2011’s Scream 4. The fourth film in the Scream franchise earned over $97 million at the box office. According to TheRichest, Campbell’s take-home pay from the first film in the franchise ended up being around $1.5 million. Meanwhile, she reportedly earned a salary bump to $3.5 million for Scream 2 and $4 million for Scream 3.

After four Scream films, Campbell told Entertainment Weekly in 2016 that she would be open to reprising her role once more, but the decision would be “a tough one” following the loss of the franchise’s director, Wes Craven, who died in 2015.

“Wes was so responsible for the success of it and the brilliance of it, and he was a dear, dear friend and a mentor, and I just don’t know how I would feel at the moment if it came around again,” she told the publication at the time. “It would have to be something really special and really different. They’d have to be really convincing about who they decided to bring on as director, and I’d still have to do a bit of soul-searching on that one.”

Five years later, Campbell’s casting as Sidney Prescott was confirmed for the fifth Scream film, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and planned for release in January 2022. While she was first hesitant to participate after Craven’s death, she was eventually persuaded. “The new directors came to me with this beautiful letter saying that they’ve become directors and love film because of these films, and because of Wes, and they really want to be true to his story and his journey with these films, so I was really happy to hear that,” she told Variety in 2020.

Though Neve Campbell’s Scream 5 salary has yet to be publicly reported, we’d wager to say that she’s earning a significant paycheck based on the massive box office earnings and salaries from the previous four films in the Scream franchise to date.

What is Neve Campbell’s net worth?

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Neve Campbell’s net worth is $10 million as of 2022. This accounts for Campbell’s salaries from each of the Scream franchise films, including her $1.5 million, $3.5 million and $4 million paychecks from Scream, Scream 2 and Scream 3, respectively. While Campbell’s salary for Scream 4 and Scream 5 are unknown, it’s clear that the trajectory of her earnings is only going up from here.

Scream 5 premieres in theaters on January 14, 2022. You can get tickets here for your local showings. Plus, here’s how to watch the Scream movies in order for free.

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‘Scream’: Marley Shelton on Judy Hicks’ Return and Those Lemon Squares

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After first debuting in Scream 4, Marley Shelton is making a surprise return as Judy Hicks in the fifth installment of the iconic slasher franchise that sees a whole new generation of Woodsboro teens stalked and terrorized by Ghostface.

“I couldn’t believe it. I was over the moon,” Shelton tells ET’s Matt Cohen about learning that her character would be coming back for another sequel, this time written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The two pairs take over for creator Kevin Williamson and late director Wes Craven, who were behind the first four films.

Even though appreciation for Scream 4 has since grown after it first premiered in theaters in 2011, many fans are still divided over Hicks, a red herring first introduced as a deputy sheriff working with Dewey Riley (David Arquette) and a former high school classmate of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). Her presence at the time also caught the ire of Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), who didn’t take too kindly to her lemon squares.

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This time around, Hicks has been promoted to sheriff and is the mother of Wes (Dylan Minnette), one of the high school students – many of whom are related to the original characters – trying to stay alive. And while her quirky nature may elicit eye rolls among Wes’ friends (and Gale, who eventually returns to Woodsboro after the killings start up again), she’s easily one of the most prepared to take on Ghostface again.

Knowing how Hicks was received the first time around (“Some people love [her], you know, some people don’t,” she says), Shelton loves how the new film explores where their characters are now, especially after 10 years. “That’s one of the fun things,” she says, explaining that audiences will see “how they’ve progressed and what’s happened and where they’ve gone.”

Of course, the biggest development for Hicks being motherhood. And as Wes, whose name is a direct nod to Craven, Minnette says the character is a fulfilling moment for him. “I feel particularly tied to Scream 4, the first one I saw in theaters. So, to be related to [Marley] and [her] first movie was Scream 4, it feels full circle. Especially because I was watching that on a big screen and thinking how everyone wants to be in a Scream movie and now I am,” the actor shares.

Paramount Pictures

Given how meta and self-referential the franchise is, the actress teases “there are callbacks to Scream 4” and her character’s “Judyisms.” She says, “There’s some fun payoffs [with the] tension between Gale Weathers and Judy.”

There’s even a subtle nod to Hicks’ famous dessert. “There’s a really fun Easter egg in this one,” Shelton teases, before acknowledging how popular they’ve become. “I can’t believe the popularity of the lemon squares. They have their own celebrity situation going on. It’s amazing.”

Her lemon squares are so popular that the franchise even released a recipe for them ahead of Scream’s debut in theaters. “It’s hysterical what people kind of pick up on and keep going with,” she says.

How Hicks and her lemon squares are ultimately received this time around remains to be seen. But the new sequel certainly offers justice for Judy, who gets an opportunity to shine as one of the few returning and now, legacy, characters. Her return makes Hicks the only character not introduced in the first film to reprise their role in a second installment.

“So yeah, I’m just owning that and it was a blast,” says Shelton, who first auditioned for the role of Tatum (Rose McGowan) in the original movie before being cast 15 years later. “We shot Scream 4 about 10 years ago and that was already just a huge honor to join because I am a huge fan.”

When it comes to what she loves about the films, “this franchise is so unique. Like, the tone is so absolutely terrifying, yet funny and meta and self-referencing and character driven,” Shelton says, adding that with the latest sequel, “we set [out] to do right by that and do it again.”

Scream slashes its way into theaters on Friday.