Neve Campbell better get her agent on the phone, because the Scream team is getting the band back together for the planned series reboot. David Arquette was the first cast member to throw his name into the Scream ring, bringing Dewey Riley back into the murderous fold. Now Courteney Cox has agreed to reprise the role of Gale Weathers for the movie, and shared this Instagram post to announce the news:
The message? “I can’t wait to see this face again.” That’s ironic, because usually when you saw this face in a Scream movie, it meant that the person wearing it was trying desperately to kill you.
Courteney Cox would know this, though. She has played Gale Weathers in the previous four Scream movies, though the character has evolved drastically from one movie to the next. She started off as a sensationalistic reporter, trying to get her big break by covering the story of Cotton Weary. Gale’s life in intertwined with both Dewey (Arquette) and Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) in the four Scream movies, as the trio faces down an array of killers who all choose to war the Ghostface mask.
We don’t know a whole heck of a lot about the plans for Scream 5, though it’s definitely shaping up to be a traditional sequel (as opposed to a complete franchise reboot) now that two main legacy characters are coming back. We joke about Neve Campbell, but at this point, it would be weird if she isn’t asked to return to the role of Sidney. She has been the lead role in the Scream franchise, and the killers have had connections to her over the years. Will the find a way for that to continue?
Sadly, the one member of the original Scream team who will not be able to return might be the one who is missed most. Director Wes Craven launched the meta horror series back in 1996, then returned for each chapter of the saga. Sadly, Scream 4 is Craven’s last credited feature. The director died in 2015 at the age of 76.
The responsibility of bringing Scream back to the big screen now falls to Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the co-directors who put Samar Weaving through the wringer in the crowd-pleasing bloodbath Ready or Not. That movie showed a real grasp for the type of giddy horror-comedy that the Scream franchise specialized in. So while it will be strange to have a Scream movie that doesn’t have Craven’s fingerprints on it, I think we can trust in their vision to live up to the acclaimed director’s reputation.
Right now, Scream 5 is aiming for an undetermined 2021 release date. The way that casting is ramping up, it would suggest a start date for filming relatively soon, though productions are still figuring out how to move forward with studio lots and stages being open, so stay tuned for details once we have them.
