The past few weeks have featured a few snippets of casting for the next Scream film, Scream 6 if you're keeping track (though it'll likely be known as something else when it arrives). One person who won't be turning up, though (at least right now) is franchise veteran Neve Campbell, who has opted to skip this one after passing on the lowball pay offer from studio Paramount.
"Sadly I won’t be making the next Scream film," reads her statement. "As a woman I have had to work extremely hard in my career to establish my value, especially when it comes to Scream. I felt the offer that was presented to me did not equate to the value I have brought to the franchise."
“It’s been a very difficult decision to move on," she continues. "To all my Scream fans, I love you. You’ve always been so incredibly supportive to me. I’m forever grateful to you and to what this franchise has given me over the past 25 years."
It's bad news for those who were looking forward to Sidney Prescott kicking ass again on screen, but you have to applaud Campbell for sticking to her guns.
Those who will be on screen for the next Ghostface-flavoured run-around include the survivors of the last movie, Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding, plus returning veteran Courteney Cox and Scream 4's Hayden Panettiere, who was confirmed recently. Also on board? New recruit Dermot Mulroney.
The most recent movie's Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are returning to direct the next, from a script by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick. "I just read part of the script, and it just gets more and more gory,” Ortega recently told Entertainment Tonight. “I think that this is probably the most aggressive and violent version of Ghostface we’ve ever seen, which I think will really be fun to shoot.” This next Scream will be out on 31 March next year. Will Paramount, riding high on the likes of Top Gun: Maverick and Sonic The Hedgehog, crack open its coffers to offer a better payday to Campbell? Watch this (ghost)space...