The Scream franchise has cheated death over and over during the past almost 30 years. But since Wes Craven’s passing in 2015, fans of the slasher franchise, past cast members included, thought a new movie would never again see the light of day. Enter the Ready or Not filmmaking duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The two self-proclaimed Scream fans quickly picked up the baton of Craven’s beloved horror franchise and pushed forward to breathe fresh air into its newest fifth installment, Scream.
But, how do you reel a hesitant Neve Campbell into the project to reprise her star role of Sidney Prescott? In a recent interview with Total Film, Campbell revealed the pair wrote her a letter in an attempt to draw her talents and background with the film back into the leading role. “I had been apprehensive about the idea of Scream being revived by somebody else,” the Canadian actress said, “When the film came up, I thought ‘Oh, no!’”
Like many others, Campbell thought the films had been put to rest when Craven passed away, but she says that following the letter she watched Ready or Not and that completely shifted her stance on returning to the town of Woodsboro.
“I realized that they were superbly talented, and that their movie was certainly in keeping with the tone of the Scream movies,” Campbell says, “And in the letter, they said that they became directors because of Wes Craven, and because of the Scream movies. And so it just seemed like the right fit.”
When filming began, the directors seemed to be a bit starstruck, not just by Campbell and her other returning co-stars, David Arquette and Courteney Cox, but by the filming of the continuation of the story itself.
“It was funny, one of them said to me on the first day when I was shooting one of my scenes, they were watching the monitor, and they forgot that they were directing the movie. They thought that they were just watching a Scream movie they hadn’t seen before!” Campbell says of her opening days filming the new flick with the new directors. She goes on, “It was such a surreal experience for them. It was like, ‘No, you’re directing. Can you direct me?!”
When asked about where Sidney is before she gets pulled back into the mayhem of her hometown, Campbell wasn’t willing to share too much. Of this, the actress said,
"Sidney is now a mother. So another level of strength as a woman. She’s living out of her hometown. She lives away. And she has a happy life. And that’s all I can tell you."
Fans who want to know more won’t have too long to wait until SCREAM slashes into theaters on January 14, 2022. That gives everyone plenty of time for a franchise rewatch to remember who has donned the mask over the last near-30 years and who has caught the cold end of Ghostface’s blade.