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 screenwriter Kevin Williamson encouraged directors of new sequel to take ‘big swings’
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The directors and executive producer of the horror franchise’s fifth installment tell EW about risk-taking and paying homage to Wes Craven.
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It is no real spoiler to say that the new Scream film (out in cinemas Jan. 14) takes big swings when it comes to some of the beloved franchise’s characters. Executive producer Chad Villella explains that the jaw-dropping turns were a crucial part of the original script, by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick.
“Those big swings were definitely present in the script,” says Villella. “As you’re getting closer and closer to production, and the rubber’s about to meet the road, everyone always voices their doubts and is like, ‘Oh, are we sure this the right choice?’ But for us, those swings, they’re so essential and so integral to what happens in the story. They’re really consequential. All of the really big turning points for us, they’re valuable to what the movie is and it just wouldn’t be the same experience if you removed them. It’s sort of a house of cards and really that is what was so clear to us about the script as we were reading it. We loved the risks that it took and wanted to make sure that we protected those at all costs.”
Co-director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin reveals that another of the new film’s executive producers, original Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson, encouraged such risk-taking.
“There’s a swing in the movie that Kevin Williamson flagged in pre-production,” says Bettinelli-Olpin, a member of the Radio Silence collective along with his fellow Scream director Tyler Gillett and Villella. “[He said], ‘This is the only thing that doesn’t quite feel like it’s in a Scream movie, which is why I think it’s the absolute thing you need to make sure stays in the script.’”
Below, Bettinelli-Olpin, Gillett, and Villella talk about paying homage to Wes Craven (who directed the first four films in the series) and the future of the Scream franchise.
Scream 2022 Scream 2022 | Credit: BROWNIE HARRIS/ Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The new Scream has been getting great reactions. That must feel pretty good.
TYLER GILLETT: Yeah, I think it’s more than we ever expected. You always make something hoping that it connects with people and you’re white-knuckling it right up to the moment that people’s opinions are out in the world. We are beyond thrilled [about the reactions] and so excited for audiences now to get to have the experience.
Your 2019 movie Ready or Not was a success, but what was the process of auditioning for the Scream gig?
CHAD VILLELLA: Well, it’s funny you bring up Ready or Not because Ready or Not kind of was our audition. Working [on the film] with the team at Project X — William Sherak, Paul Neinstein, and James Vanderbilt — that was very nice and they brought us in to Gary Barber at Spyglass. They said, “We think you’re the guys to help us make this movie,” and we couldn’t be more thankful for them doing that.
Scream 2022 Scream 2022 | Credit: BROWNIE HARRIS/ Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group
What was it like reading the script? And how similar was that screenplay to what people will see in cinemas?
MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN: We went in to read the script and we took probably two-and-a-half, three hours to do it, because it was so good and we didn’t want to miss anything. It read like you were seeing the movie in the most realistic way. What people will see is pretty much what was on the page then. We changed some things out of necessity, but at the end of the day, the script we read and the movie you’re seeing are very very similar. They really wrote a great script.
The movie goes deep in the weeds with the horror genre. I thought I was having a stroke when some characters started discussing “elevated horror.” It was like someone had scooped out my brain and put it on a screen.
GILLETT: That’s how we felt reading it. We’ve always been reticent to step into a franchise because it’s so hard to create new tracks in something, especially when it’s been done so successfully. Obviously, we’re fans of the original four movies and all of Wes’ work, there was a sort of added layer of pressure with this. So we went in to reading that script and we were so blown away by the multiple layers of commentary in the movie and how, like you said, it felt like Guy and Jamie were inside our brains. There were moments when we were literally cheering when we reading the script.
The Scream series has been very well curated over the years compared to some other franchises. Was that an advantage or did it make your mission more daunting?
VILLELLA: It was an absolute advantage dipping into the Scream lineage and the way that worlds were connected through all four films. The conversation we all had, and Guy and Jamie [dealt with] wonderfully in the script, was, what is it like ten years later? Like, let’s just go and lean into the real world of Woodsboro, and what it is like ten years later, and hopefully continue this wonderful storyline that Wes and Kevin Williamson created 25 years ago.
Scream 2022 Credit: BROWNIE HARRIS/ Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group
As Scream fans, what was it like to step on to set and find yourself directing Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott?
BETTINELLI-OLPIN: Surreal. Just very, very unbelievable. Neve was invaluable in the pre-production process, kind of keeping it within the guard rails of what Scream is. She had a lot of great thoughts that all got worked into the script. Then, on set, Neve, Courteney (Cox), David (Arquette), they really helped guide us along the way in terms of what it was like during the original movies. We tried very hard to kind of marry our process to the process that they all went through in the first four movies, with Wes Craven, and the father-like figure that he was on set.
The new Scream is dedicated to Wes. Could you talk about how you pay homage to him in the film?
BETTINELLI-OLPIN: Our starting point was this has to be, on some level, a love letter to Wes Craven, Scream, and his other work. I would say throughout the making of the movie and within the finished product itself there’s so many little nods to Wes, there’s big nods to Wes. At the end of the day, the entire thing is ultimately a love letter to Wes from us. He’s one of the greatest directors, period, of his generation. To go into the movie already as fans, I think we all came out on the other side even bigger fans because we’ve gotten to know people [who knew him]. Everything we’ve heard and everyone we talked to about him has just been, he was the nicest, most supportive, loving man. So it’s daunting to pick up where he left off on Scream but it also was a real blessing for us.
Would you gentlemen be up for making another Scream film?
VILLELLA: I mean, we love Scream. This is why we’re filmmakers, we love being a part of this franchise. If everyone decides to have us back we would happily talk about the story and where it could possibly go.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Watch the trailer for the new Scream film below.
For interviews with cast and crew, behind-the-scenes tidbits and photos, and much more, pick up a copy of Entertainment Weekly’s Guide to Scream, available online or wherever magazines are sold.
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Everything we know about the fifth ‘Scream’ movie, starring Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and Neve Campbell
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The upcoming film will feature a mix of familiar and new characters.
Parker Posey, Courteney Cox Arquette, and David Arquette in Wes Craven’s “Scream 3.” Joseph Viles/Dimension Films/Getty
Franchise stars David Arquette, Courteney Cox, and Neve Campbell (who played Dewey, Gale, and Sidney in all four previous “Scream” films) will reprise their roles in the upcoming movie.
But there’s plenty of newcomers in the new “Scream” as well, including Marley Shelton, Melissa Barrera, Mikey Madison, Dylan Minnette, Jenna Ortega, and Jasmin Savoy Brown.
Shelton appeared in “Scream 4,” Barrera recently starred in “In the Heights,” and Brown is currently playing a young Taissa Turner on Showtime’s “Yellowjackets.” Madison, Minette, and Ortega have had roles on “Better Things,” “13 Reasons Why,” and “You,” respectively.
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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Jack Quaid Is Scared to Watch His New Scream Movie Too
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Angelo d’Agostino
IF YOU DIDN’T BELIEVE Jack Quaid was a nice guy from his roles in Amazon Prime Video’s superhero send-up series The Boys or the underrated romantic comedy Plus One, then maybe you’ll believe it from Instagram’s hottest celebrity gossip source. The 29-year-old star, son of actors Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, has become a fixture on @Deuxmoi, the account that shares no-holds-barred user-submitted gossip—some good, a lot of it…not so much—to more than 1.3 million morbidly curious followers.
In a sea of juicy second-hand information that could expose affairs or ruin reputations, the most notable stories about Quaid are mainly that he’s a good tipper and can be really chatty at parties. @Deuxmoi started posting about Quaid a year and change ago, when they received an e-mail from someone who claimed they met up with a friend who was on a date with him, and didn’t even realize he was a famous actor because he was so nice and down to earth. That post led to even more blind items about how goddamn nice this guy was.
It’s hardly juicy gossip, but @Deuxmoi has become a fan. “For me, personally, I liked that as someone who is basically Hollywood royalty he seemed like a genuinely nice & unassuming guy,” the anonymous proprietor of the account says.
You’d expect Quaid to play another Nice Guy™ in the new Scream, the fifth installment of the beloved meta-slasher whodunit series. And he does—his role is Richie, the supportive and practical boyfriend of one of the central characters. But for 26 years, this series has taught viewers to suspect everyone—and to never let anyone off the hook until the end credits start to roll. Think about how many times we all went back and forth on Billy Loomis in the original Scream, Derek in Scream 2, and Detective Mark Kincaid in Scream 3. Being a Nice Guy™ might mean something in a Scream movie—but it also might not.
Quaid and Melissa Barrera in Scream. Paramount
We can’t say too much about the movie for fear of being stabbed by someone from Paramount in a Ghostface mask, but when it comes to playing Richie with the franchise’s signature opaqueness, Quaid says, “I’m always in the mood for a challenge.”
If you look at the promo material for the new Scream long enough, you could probably convince yourself that just about every character is up to something. (Sleuths on Reddit are already doing just that.) Quaid’s appearance on the movie poster is different from his usual Nice Guy™ look: seedier, with a dirty-looking flannel and a full beard on his usually clean-shaven face.
“I think people are going to be very surprised with the character he plays in Scream,” co-star Melissa Barrera says. “It’s something completely different.”
Paramount
Neve Campbell, who plays franchise protagonist Sidney Prescott, helped directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin cast the new installment in line with the late Wes Craven’s vision for the series. “One of the things she told us was to make sure when we’re casting the younger roles that everyone just is brave and wants to take chances,” Gillett says. “That was something she said she really remembered, particularly about the first movie: that everyone just showed up swinging for the fences, and you really feel the fun of that movie because of those choices.”
The directors watched Quaid’s performance as Hughie on The Boys, and liked the range they saw. “He’s got all the qualities we look for in an actor where he’s not just one thing,” Bettinelli-Olpin says. “When you watch him on The Boys, he can go from being covered in blood and terrified, to being funny and humorous within a moment.”
Quaid as Hughie Campbell in The Boys. Alamy
The directors also happen to subscribe to @Deuxmoi.
“It’s got to be Jack, right?” Gillett jokes. “Running that Instagram?”
Jokes aside, the filmmakers agree @Deuxmoi could be onto something with the Jack Quaid thirst. “If Jack’s the bar for a modern heartthrob, then we’re in a great place because he’s such a kind, just wonderful soul,” Bettinelli-Olpin says.
Quaid himself is a little baffled by the whole thing—but he’ll take it. “It’s an interesting thing to be a part of, because you’re like, I don’t know, you didn’t ask for it, it just kind of happened,” he says. “It’s not a negative thing either, it’s just kind of… I don’t know. I guess it’s nice.”
STARRING IN A SCREAM MOVIE isn’t where Quaid thought he’d end up. Not long after the original film came out in 1996, a young Quaid encountered a Halloween trick-or-treater with a deluxe version of the iconic Ghostface mask: one where an attached tube pumped “blood” down its face. “I remember that scared the shit out of me when I was, like, four years old,” he says. “So I was like, ‘Oh no, no, no. I don’t want to watch that movie.’” He was too afraid to watch horror movies until his early 20s.
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While he eventually came around to the genre (he’s spent a large chunk of recent time catching up on classics that he missed, like Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness), he still watches with his fingers in his ears and his hands partially blocking his eyes. When he made it through Scream for the first time, he realized something: “It’s like a gateway drug,” he says. Since Scream references movies like Friday the 13th, and Halloween, it made him want to go back and watch them, too. “I came to realize that no horror movie was ever going to be as bad as what I imagined it to be.” (On the wall of his West Hollywood home, there’s now a poster for Stab, the movie-within-a-movie from the Scream sequels.)
And it turns out, Quaid’s pretty good at acting in stuff that would normally scare him shitless.
“Jack is a good fit for genre for the same reasons he’s a good fit for anything—he knows how to ground a performance in these little moments of humanity that make a character real and relatable,” says Eric Kripke, creator and showrunner of The Boys. “It’s important for any film, but especially important in genre, because the actor’s job is to take these absurd fantasy concepts and ground them in character and heart. Jack finds the real person beneath all the bells and whistles.”
Tomer Capon, Quaid, and Karl Urban in The Boys. Alamy
Quaid is used to people assuming his parents helped him get a foot in the door. “It’s fine,” he says, looking away just the tiniest bit. “It’s part of it, I get it.” He insists they mostly gave him practical advice, like how long a day on set would be. “I mostly just get support from them,” he says. “They’re never mean enough—even if I sucked in something—to be like, ‘That was terrible,’ you know?”
Makes you realize where the Nice Guy™ thing came from.
TO SAY THERE’S a bit of apprehension surrounding the new Scream might be an understatement. The last installment, Scream 4, was released more than a decade ago, but more significant is the fact that Wes Craven, the horror master who directed every other Scream movie, died in 2015. It would be perfectly reasonable for any Scream fan to believe the series should have ended right there.
Dylan Minnette, Quaid, Barrera, and David Arquette in Scream. Paramount
But it’s also easy to get on board with the return of original stars Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette, along with original screenwriter Kevin Williamson (back now in an executive producer capacity). The new movie brings in the directing team of Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin, who helmed 2018’s Ready or Not, a dark horror/comedy that mirrors the exact kind of tone a Scream movie needs to have. “It’s very evident how much they’re trying to honor Wes in this movie,” Quaid says. “They’re trying to make a movie he would be proud of. And there was a lot of reverence towards him on that set. We weren’t just making a movie to cash in on a franchise; we wanted to make sure this is a movie that he would enjoy, and that he would be proud of.”
We will reveal one thing about the new Scream that should make fans happy: For every minute of edge-of-the-seat-tension comes another minute of the laugh-out-loud self-awareness that defines the series. Even though Wes Craven is gone, it feels like a Scream movie—and that’s something that would probably make the horror master proud. Quaid should be proud of his part in the legacy—even if he decides to plug his ears and block his eyes every time he rewatches the movie.