The Scream franchise has been around for almost 30 years, and in these 30 years the franchise has cheated death several times, but after Wes Craven‘s passing in 2015, fans of the slasher films and even the cast member had abandoned hope to see a new Scream film. However, the filmmaking duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not) have picked up Craven’s beloved horror franchise and are coming with its fifth installment simply titled, Scream.
But even with the revival of the film, how do you bring in the hesitant Neve Campbell to play her star role of Sidney Prescott? In a recent interview with Total Film, Campbell revealed that the filmmaking duo wrote her a letter to get her back into the film in her leading role. “I had been apprehensive about the idea of Scream being revived by somebody else,” Campbell said, “When the film came up, I thought ‘Oh, no!’”
After Craven’s passing Campbell thought like many that the Scream franchise is over but after reading the letter, she watched Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s Ready or Not, which completely convinced her to step back into the shoes of Sidney Prescott and walk into the town of Woodsboro.
Campbell said this on her return to the franchise:
“I realized that they were superbly talented and that their movie was certainly in keeping with the tone of the Scream movies, 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 the production on the filming began, the directors were starstruck, not just by Campbell but also her other returning co-stars, David Arquette and Courtney Cox.
“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 about working with the new directors in the beginning. She goes on to say, “It was such a surreal experience for them. It was like, ‘No, you’re directing. Can you direct me?!”
When the interviewer asked Campbell about where her character Sidney is before she gets pulled back into the mayhem, the Canadian actress didn’t share much but she did say this:
“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.”
Scream will be hitting theaters on January 14, 2022.
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