Scream 7 will slash its way into theaters next year, and the horror franchise is gearing up for a pretty massive family reunion. The latest installment in the series marks Neve Campbell’s return to her iconic role as Sidney Prescott after sitting out for Scream 6. As usual, she’ll be joined by Courtney Cox (Gail Weathers), but they won’t be the only familiar faces for longtime Scream fans.
It’s previously been confirmed that three different characters from past Scream films were returning for the new outing, despite dying in previous installments. We aren’t sure how exactly this will happen. But get ready for the return of beloved (nearly) unkillable cop Dewey Riley (David Arquette), horror movie director and Scream 3 killer Roman Bridger (Scott Foley), and half of the murderous duo that started it all in the first film, Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard).
For Lillard, who’s returning to the franchise for the first time since his uncredited Scream 2 cameo, coming back was a dream, even if he’s terrified of how the world will react. The actor can still remember the exact moment he got the news from Kevin Williamson, who wrote the original Scream and returns to both write and direct this sequel.
“I remember the phone call. I remember who I was talking to. I remember the small talk. I remember him asking. That moment is indelibly imprinted on my psyche,” Lillard tells Polygon. “So I’m really proud to be back. I’m really excited to be back.”
Returning to the character, who hasn’t appeared in a Scream movie in three decades, posed a very specific type of challenge.
“To sort of go back to a character that you played in your mid-20s at 55 and try to figure out how to do that was a challenge that kept me up at night,” Lillard says.
Stu Macher has also become iconic in the years since Scream’s 1996 release, which left Lillard feeling “trepidatious.”
“The reality is, that’s a part that lives in infamy, for better or for worse,” he says. “A part that is now represented in every single Scream mask that walks around every Halloween.”
Now that production is done, however, Lillard is waiting like the rest of us to see how Scream 7 turns out. Unfortunately, he also had the added pressure of not wanting to be the person responsible for the downfall of the franchise, as unlikely as that seems.
“It’s either a success and people are thrilled to have you, or it’s a fail, right? Going into it, I don’t know if the movie’s gonna work. I don’t know if people want to see me,” Lillard says. “I mean, I’ve certainly seen enough people come out and say, ‘Stu is dead. Why are they going back to this trope? Why are they doing this?’ So the reality is that I feel a lot of pressure to not mess up the franchise. I don’t want people leaving Scream 7 and being like, ‘Well, that sucked, and Matthew Lillard was the reason.'”
While a lot of longtime Scream fans can’t wait to see Stu back on the big screen, we are all now left with two months to figure out how it’s going to happen. Perhaps Stu, Dewey, and Roman live rent-free in Sidney’s head, much like Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) did in Sam Carpenter’s (Melissa Barrera) in 2022’s Scream. Then again, maybe somehow they’re all alive and living together in some sort of Ghostface-themed retirement home. Or perhaps we’re in for a fourth-wall breaking meta-horror like in the Scream precursor, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.
We’ll find out when Scream 7 hits in theaters on Feb. 27, 2006.
