Neve Campbell's 'Scream VII' Return Is a Cynical Distraction Via Nostalgic Pandering

Swapping Neve Campbell for a (unjustly) fired Melissa Barrera might not win back the newer, younger fans, but it will undercut what made the new 'Scream' series special

The news, in brief… Kevin Williamson will replace Christopher Landon as the director of the seventh Scream installment (let’s hope it’s better than Teaching Mrs. Tingle), but curiously, not writing. Moreover, Neve Campbell is reprising her role as Sidney Prescott after not appearing in Scream VI allegedly over a pay dispute.

This isn’t the new Scream franchise we were promised. After two (well-received and commercially successful) installments that slowly broke away from the past and successfully established a new generation of younger and more diverse protagonists to carry the torch, Scream VII will apparently go in the opposite direction.

Does this look like Spyglass essentially dangling shiny “memberberries” in front of an eager older online fanbase (and a non-judgmental media who are mostly inclined to write “Yay, Sidney is back, and she’s everything!”) to try and salvage what previously was their most valuable IP? Yes, yes, it does.

Does this look like essentially undoing one of the more worthwhile elements of this franchise revamp for the sake of pandering to overgrown adolescents? Well, imagine if a Disney Star Wars sequel series, mid-story arc no less, tossed out Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac and announced a new Star Wars movie that would again star Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams?

Even aside from the grotesque circumstances that saw the franchise’s new leading lady — Melissa Barrera — being fired by Spyglass over social media posts protesting the still-ongoing slaughter of non-combatant civilians by a scandal-plagued, right-wing demagogue, the irony is thick. After one Scream film that patterned itself after The Force Awakens and another that mostly sidelined the legacy characters to further emphasize the newbies, we’ll see if Scream is about to get its own Rise of Skywalker.