‘Scream 7’: Release Date, Cast, and: What We Know So Far

Sidney Prescott skipped the last Scream movie over a pay dispute, and the franchise still had its best domestic run ever without her. Now Neve Campbell is back, Kevin Williamson, the writer who started all of this in 1996, is directing for the first time in more than 25 years, and Ghostface is coming for Sidney’s teenage daughter. Here is what’s confirmed about Scream 7, what’s only reported, and how a sequel that nearly fell apart in 2023 got back on track.

Key Takeaways
– Release date: Friday, February 27, 2026, in theaters, from Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group.
– Director: Kevin Williamson, writer of Scream (1996), Scream 2 and Scream 4. It’s his first feature as director since Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999).
– Returning: Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott), Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers), Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown (the Meeks-Martin twins), plus Matthew Lillard and Scott Foley, whose characters died decades ago.
– New faces: Isabel May as Sidney’s daughter Tatum, Joel McHale as Sidney’s husband, plus Mckenna Grace, Anna Camp, Jimmy Tatro, Mark Consuelos, Ethan Embry and others.
– Not returning: Melissa Barrera (fired by Spyglass in November 2023) and Jenna Ortega (exited the same month).
– Story: A new Ghostface surfaces in the quiet town where Sidney has rebuilt her life, and her daughter becomes the target.

Scream 7 Release Date and Key Facts

Paramount has Scream 7 dated for February 27, 2026, a theatrical-first release. That’s a familiar slot for the series under Paramount. Scream (2022) opened in mid-January and Scream VI opened March 10, 2023, so the studio keeps placing these films in the late-winter window where big franchise competition is thin and horror audiences show up.

That timing also gives the film breathing room on a crowded calendar. December 2025 belongs to the holiday heavyweights (James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash and Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme both landed then), and the summer tentpoles like Spider-Man: Brand New Day don’t arrive until July 2026. Late February is open territory for a slasher.

On the rating: every Scream film has been rated R, mostly for strong bloody violence and language, and nothing about a Williamson-directed legacy sequel suggests a softer approach. Treat the R as near-certain until the MPA’s final certificate is published.

What Scream 7 Is About

Paramount’s official logline is short. When a new Ghostface killer emerges in the quiet town where Sidney Prescott has built a new life, her darkest fears are realized as her daughter becomes the next target. Determined to protect her family, Sidney has to face the horrors of her past to end the bloodshed for good.

That setup tells you a lot about where the franchise is heading.

It’s a Sidney movie again. The 2022 film and Scream VI shifted focus to Sam and Tara Carpenter (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega), with Sidney as a supporting presence in 2022 and absent from VI entirely. With both Carpenter sisters gone, the series is pivoting back to its original final girl.

It’s a parent’s story. Sidney was a teenager whose mother’s murder kicked off the original killings. Now she’s the mother. That inversion is the most interesting idea on the table, and it’s the kind of thing Williamson, who built Dawson’s Creek out of family friction and teen confession, is well suited to write toward.

The daughter is named Tatum. Isabel May plays Tatum Evans, a clear nod to Tatum Riley, Sidney’s best friend who died in a garage door in the 1996 original. Sidney naming her kid after Rose McGowan’s character is a nice piece of lore, and it hints the film wants to sit in the shadow of the first movie rather than the New York chapter.

Small town, not big city. Scream VI moved the action to Manhattan. Going back to a quiet town returns the series to its Woodsboro roots, where everyone knows everyone and anyone could be wearing the mask.

Scream 7 Cast: Who’s Back and Who’s New

Here’s the cast as announced through official and trade channels (Deadline, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter broke most of these). Paramount hasn’t disclosed several of the new characters’ names or roles, so where you see “undisclosed,” that’s genuinely unknown, not an omission.

Neve Campbell’s return

Campbell’s exit from Scream VI was public and pointed. In 2022 she said the offer she received didn’t reflect the value she’d brought to the franchise, and she walked. In March 2024, she announced she was coming back. For a series that has always defined itself by the survivor at its center, that’s the single most important piece of casting news. A Sidney-led Scream with Williamson behind the camera is the closest thing to the original creative team you can get without Wes Craven, who died in 2015.

Courteney Cox, still undefeated

Cox is the only actor to appear in every Scream film, a streak that now runs to seven. Gale Weathers survived a brutal attack in Scream VI, and Cox has been part of the franchise’s public promotion since her return was confirmed. Expect Gale to be the bridge between the legacy cast and the new kids, the way she was in 2022.

The dead don’t stay dead: Stu and Roman

This is the part of the cast list that should make longtime fans lean in. Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) was one of the two original killers, apparently finished off when Sidney dropped a TV on his head in 1996. Roman Bridger (Scott Foley) was Sidney’s half-brother and the killer of Scream 3, shot dead by Dewey at the end of that film.

Neither character should be alive. So how are they in the movie? Paramount hasn’t said. The possibilities range from flashbacks, to dream or hallucination sequences that play on Sidney’s trauma, to an in-universe Stab recreation, to a true resurrection. The “Stu survived” theory has floated around fan communities for years, but treat it as fan speculation, not reporting. Until the film is out or Paramount shows footage, nobody outside the production can tell you which version it is.

The same caution applies to other legacy rumors. A few earlier franchise players have been floated in fan circles and some outlets, but if a name isn’t in the table above, it hasn’t been confirmed through official or trade channels as of this writing.

Who isn’t coming back

Melissa Barrera was fired by Spyglass Media Group in November 2023 over social media posts about the Israel-Gaza war, which the company characterized as antisemitic. Barrera disputed that characterization and has spoken publicly about the firing since. Her character, Sam Carpenter, was the lead of the two previous films.

Jenna Ortega exited the same month. Early trade reports pointed to scheduling, given her commitment to Netflix’s Wednesday. Ortega later said in interviews that scheduling wasn’t the whole story, and that the situation around Barrera’s firing played a part in her decision.

Hayden Panettiere, who played Kirby Reed in Scream 4 and Scream VI, isn’t on the announced cast list either.

The result is a reboot of the reboot. The “core four” built around the Carpenter sisters is reduced to Chad and Mindy, and the center of gravity swings back to Sidney.

Crew: Kevin Williamson Takes the Director’s Chair

Williamson wrote the original Scream screenplay (originally titled Scary Movie) and sold it in 1995. He wrote Scream 2 and Scream 4, and his name is on the franchise’s DNA: the rules, the movie-literate teenagers, the phone calls, the reveals.

His directing résumé is thin, though. His only previous feature as director is Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999), a teen thriller that didn’t land with critics or audiences. Since then he’s worked mostly in television, creating Dawson’s Creek, co-creating The Vampire Diaries and creating The Following. In 2022 he co-wrote Sick with Katelyn Crabb, a pandemic-set home-invasion slasher directed by John Hyams for Peacock, which reviewers generally liked and which showed he still knows how to write a tight Ghostface-style stalking sequence.

The rest of the creative team is continuity from the Radio Silence era.

Busick and Vanderbilt wrote both recent films, so the script carries the same team that made the meta-commentary feel current again. Williamson’s job is to make it feel like his again.

How Scream 7 Nearly Fell Apart

Few horror sequels have had a messier development stretch. Here’s how it played out.

March 2023. Scream VI opens to about $44.4 million domestically, the best opening in franchise history, and finishes with roughly $108 million in North America. A seventh film is a given.

Mid-2023. Radio Silence step away to make Abigail (2024), and Christopher Landon, the director of Happy Death Day and Freaky, is announced as the new director. On paper it’s a smart match: Landon’s films are funny, gory and genre-literate.

November 2023. Spyglass fires Barrera. Ortega’s exit follows. The two leads of the current trilogy are gone within weeks.

December 2023. Landon departs, later describing the experience as a nightmare and saying the project had become one he no longer recognized.

March 2024. The reset. Neve Campbell announces she’s back, and Williamson is reported as director. Courteney Cox’s return follows.

2024 into 2025. Paramount sets the February 27, 2026 date, the new cast is assembled, and principal photography gets underway in early 2025.

That sequence matters for what you see on screen. The movie being released is not the movie Landon was going to make. It’s a rebuilt project shaped around Campbell, and the story’s focus on Sidney’s family is almost certainly a product of that rebuild.

Trailer and Marketing

Paramount controls the footage, and that’s where you should look for it: the studio’s official YouTube channel and the Scream social accounts. The first trailer is the moment the Stu and Roman questions either get a hint or get buried deeper, so expect that to be the most dissected 2 minutes of the campaign.

A word on everything else. Set photos, “leaked” plot synopses and anonymous posts claiming to know the killer’s identity have circulated for every recent Scream film. This franchise lives on its reveal, so we’re not repeating unverified killer theories as if they were news. If a claim isn’t coming from Paramount, Spyglass or a named reporter at an established trade, treat it as rumor with no track record.

The Franchise by the Numbers

Scream has been remarkably steady at the box office, with one big dip in 2011. Figures below are approximate worldwide grosses from Box Office Mojo, and Tomatometer scores are approximate Rotten Tomatoes critic scores, which shift slightly over time.

A few things jump out.

First, the series has never had a true flop. Even Scream 4, the low point commercially, made more than double its reported budget of around $40 million worldwide.

Second, the two Radio Silence films restored critical goodwill. Both landed comfortably in fresh territory, and Scream VI posted the franchise’s best domestic total, all without Sidney.

Third, the one rotten entry, Scream 3, is the only film Williamson didn’t write (Ehren Kruger did, after Williamson stepped back). Fans have long read that as proof of how much the series depends on his voice. Scream 7 is the test of that theory.

For Scream 7, the reasonable benchmark is the 2022-2023 range: something between $140 million and $170 million worldwide would put it squarely in line with the series. Audiences will read anything above Scream VI as validation of the Campbell-and-Williamson reset. A drop well below Scream (2022) would raise real questions about the franchise after losing its younger leads.

Where to Watch the Scream Movies Before Scream 7

You’ve got time to catch up before February 27, and you should, especially on Scream (1996) and Scream 3 given who’s returning.

Streaming rights for this series are split. The 2022 and 2023 films are Paramount releases, while the first four came out through Dimension Films and have rotated across services over the years. Here’s where things generally stand, but check your service before you settle in, because these move.

As for Scream 7 itself, it opens exclusively in theaters. Based on how Paramount handled Scream VI, which hit premium digital rental about a month after opening and Paramount+ a few months later, you can expect a similar path, though the studio hasn’t announced streaming plans for this one.

Your priority rewatch list

If you only have a weekend, watch these four:

1. Scream (1996). Stu’s whole arc, Tatum’s death and Sidney at her most raw. Essential.
2. Scream 3 (2000). Roman Bridger’s reveal. It’s the weakest of the originals, but you’ll want Foley’s character fresh in your head.
3. Scream (2022). Sidney’s last appearance, Dewey’s death and the introduction of Chad and Mindy.
4. Scream VI (2023). Where Gale, Chad and Mindy left off. It’s also the New York one, with the subway sequence on a packed Halloween train and the bodega attack that opens the second act. It was shot in Montreal standing in for Manhattan, which you’ll notice if you ride the actual subway every day.

What Scream 7 Means for the Franchise

This is a franchise course-correcting in real time. The 2022 “requel” handed the mask to a new generation, and Scream VI proved that generation could carry a film. Then two of its leads were gone in a month, and the studio responded by going back to the oldest assets it had: Sidney, Gale and the writer who invented them.

That carries risk. Legacy sequels lean hard on nostalgia, and bringing back two dead killers flirts with the kind of franchise logic the Scream films have spent 30 years mocking. The original’s whole joke was that horror sequels are dumb and repetitive. A Scream 7 that resurrects Stu Macher without a smart reason would be exactly the thing Randy Meeks would have warned you about.

The upside is that this is the most personal setup the series has had since 1996. A survivor who has spent her life outrunning Ghostface now has a kid who’s the age she was when it started. That’s a real dramatic engine, and it’s a better reason for a seventh film than “the last one made money.”

What Happens Next

Expect the marketing to build through January and February 2026, with trailers, cast press and the usual Ghostface stunts. The first reviews will drop close to release, and that’s when the Tomatometer and audience scores will tell you whether Williamson stuck the landing.

Beyond February, nothing about an eighth film has been officially announced. But the pattern is clear. Paramount and Spyglass have released a Scream film every year or two since 2022 when the numbers hold. If Scream 7 performs in the range of its two predecessors, the conversation about what’s next will start almost immediately, and the question will be whether Sidney passes the knife to Tatum.

For New York fans, the best way to see a Scream movie remains a packed room. Horror-friendly houses like Nitehawk in Brooklyn and the Alamo Drafthouse downtown tend to draw crowds that scream at the right moments, which is exactly how these movies are meant to be watched. Opening weekend in a full theater beats a laptop at 1 a.m., no contest.

FAQ

When does Scream 7 come out?

Scream 7 opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, February 27, 2026. Paramount Pictures is distributing, with Spyglass Media Group producing. It’s a theatrical exclusive at launch, with no streaming date announced yet.

Who is directing Scream 7?

Kevin Williamson is directing. He wrote the original Scream (1996), Scream 2 and Scream 4, and this is his first feature as director since Teaching Mrs. Tingle in 1999. Christopher Landon was previously attached but left the project in December 2023.

Is Neve Campbell in Scream 7?

Yes. Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott after sitting out Scream VI over a pay dispute. She announced her return in March 2024, and the story centers on Sidney protecting her daughter, Tatum, played by Isabel May.

Why aren’t Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega in Scream 7?

Spyglass fired Melissa Barrera in November 2023 over social media posts about the Israel-Gaza war, which she has disputed. Jenna Ortega exited the same month. Early reports cited her Wednesday schedule, and Ortega later said in interviews that other factors, including the situation around Barrera, played a part.

How are Stu Macher and Roman Bridger back if they died?

Paramount hasn’t explained it. Matthew Lillard (Stu) and Scott Foley (Roman) are confirmed in the cast, but whether that means flashbacks, hallucinations, a meta in-universe recreation or a genuine survival is unknown. Theories that Stu lived through the 1996 finale are fan speculation, not reporting.

Where can I watch the Scream movies before Scream 7?

Scream (2022) and Scream VI stream on Paramount+. The first four films, originally released by Dimension, rotate between streaming services, but all six are available to rent or buy on Prime Video, Apple TV and Fandango at Home. Prioritize the 1996 original and Scream 3 given who’s returning.