Courteney Cox Officially Returning As Gale Weathers For 'Scream 7'
Cox will now have appeared in all 7 films
The Sidney-Gale reunion is happening. Perfect attendance is the name of the game as Courteney Cox has signed on for Scream 7, clinching the return of Gale Weathers after a nearly nine-month pursuit.
It was just about two weeks after the March announcement of Neve Campbell’s return to the franchise that it was reported they were looking to get Cox, the only actor to appear on camera for all six films thus far, to return once again. Campbell, who played original protagonist Sidney Prescott sat out the sixth film in pursuit of the pay she deserved. Said return was announced with Kevin Williamson, writer of three of the first four films, sliding into the directors’ chair. In late September, while still in negotiations, she reaffirmed her progress and expressed her excitement at the opportunity Williamson was taking, saying “You can’t get better than that choice. It’s going to be fun.” She did monitor the script being ironed out in all this time and acknowledged so then.
The sixth film picked up a year after her ex-husband Dewey Riley (played by David Arquette)’s death in the previous Scream installment, and Sam and Tara Carpenter (played by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) discover she went back on her word and wrote a book based on that film’s massacre despite saying she wouldn’t, much to the girls’ dismay and ensuing resentment, uneasing her at the very least. They do team up, and Gale is the one who locates the local theater turned into a Ghostface memorial shrine. She’s taken out of the action following a Ghostface attack, which she survives.
While the Carpenter sisters had fully become new protagonists bolstered by Sidney’s absence, that path was ultimately severed, triggered by Spyglass’s firing of Barrera for condemning the genocide of the Palestinians being carried out by Israel in retaliation to Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. Ortega would leave as well due to reported scheduling conflicts but it is widely believed it was in solidarity with her onscreen sister. That caused them to conveniently value Campbell properly and bring her back into the fray. However, Scream 7 has secured Mason Gooding, who played Chad Meeks-Martin, who was part of the girls’ friend group and is the nephew of Gale and Sidney’s late friend Randy, played by Jamie Kennedy in the first three films, killed in the second film. Sidney will finally bringing her daughter into the fray, played by Isabel May. Other new characters with no revealed details will be played by Celeste O’Connor, Asa Germann, McKenna Grace, Sam Rechner, and Anna Camp.
The script the Friends, Cougar Town, and Shining Vale star waited on to solidify before signing on was written by Guy Busick, who wrote Scream and Scream VI with James Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt, representing Project X Entertainment with William Sherak and Paul Neinstein are producing with Radio Silence, the directors of the fifth and sixth installments, serving as executive producers. Cox’s non-Scream film credits include the original Masters of the Universe and Zoom. Scream 7 is set to be released in theaters on February 27, 2026.
Source: Variety