Joel McHale Cast As A Different Husband Mark In 'Scream 7'
It’s Horror Movie Cast Time! Oooh chunky!
In the upcoming Scream 7, now in production in Atlanta, you’ll get to meet Sidney Prescott’s husband Mark. No not that one. If you were hoping to see Patrick Dempsey reprise his Scream 3 role as Detective Mark Kincaid to be the now-husband of Neve Campbell’s character and father to their at minimum two kids, that is not the case. But he’s not being recast. Instead, her husband is Mark Evans, played by Joel McHale.
While a character name is more than most of the film’s new cast members have, further character details, like his and Sidney’s relationship timeline, are just as unavailable. While unclear if it’s his daughter, Sidney does have one played by Isabel May, who is old enough to play one born much closer to the third film than the fourth. In 2022’s fifth film, Sidney’s called while walking with a stroller. Other new characters with no revealed details will be played by Celeste O’Connor, Asa Germann, McKenna Grace, Sam Rechner, and Anna Camp. In addition to Campbell, the film sees the returns of Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers and Mason Gooding as Chad Meeks-Martin.
A recent guest star on The Simpsons, McHale is best known for starting out on Seattle sketch comedy series Almost Live, hosting The Soup and starring on Community for six seasons and the upcoming Peacock movie he’s conceded he’s been the holdup on, at least for the stuff he could himself control. Lately he’s been quite involved in Fox circles, starring on Animal Control, which had been the network’s sole live action comedy series for a recently-ended period, and hosting Crime Scene Kitchen and episodes of We Are Family. He also starred on Stargirl as Sylvester Pemberton aka Starman, including when it was Ultra-Humanite’s brain in the body. Most recently he’s played Chef David, Carmy’s abusive former boss on FX’s The Bear and is to guest star in the third season of Yellowjackets which premieres in February. McHale’s film roles include Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, Ted, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, It’s a Wonderful Knife, and voicing Johnny Cage in three Mortal Kombat Legends direct-to-video films: Scorpion’s Revenge, Battle of the Realms, and Cage Match.
McHale posted to Instagram reflecting on the juxtaposition of this news coming through during this period of devastating Palisades wildfires. “Amongst all the pain and suffering that has happened in Los Angeles over the last week, here’s an announcement of a movie I’m going to be in. I’m just thrilled and to be a part of the Scream franchise and thrilled Deadline used a headshot of mine from eight years ago.”
Kevin Williamson, who of the original four Wes Craven-directed films only missed out on writing the third, is back to direct but is not writing this film. He replaces the departed Christopher Landon. Guy Busick, who wrote Scream and Scream VI with James Vanderbilt is going solo this time while Vanderbilt is busy with other commitments. 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.
Relitigating all of the circumstances of the pivoting back to Sidney after Neve Campbell held out on the sixth film doesn’t seem entirely necessary here. It’s not all that relevant to whoever the husband ended up being when there’s so much time that anything between them could’ve happened, but it’s nice to finally see what Sidney’s situation is after being mostly sidestepped over the 15 years since the fourth film, which so happened to feature McHale’s Community co-star Alison Brie. Scream 7 is currently set to open in theaters on February 27, 2026.
Source: Deadline