The iconic final girl is back with a vengeance. The long-awaited first official trailer for Scream 7, which dropped on Thursday, brings Neve Campbell back as the fearless Sidney Prescott. "Hello, Sidney. Did you miss me?" a Ghostface whispers over the phone. "You and your pretty daughter have found a nice little town. It reminds me of where we grew up." The two then face off in a tense showdown.
While Ghostface is most interested in pursuing Sidney's daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), the trailer reveals that this leads Tatum to "want to become a fighter" like her mom. And Sidney teaches her the rules of survival, guiding her through the terrifying ordeal. It's also worth noting that it seems Sidney named her daughter Tatum in honor of her friend Tatum (played by Rose McGowan), whom Ghostface killed in the 1996 film.
The trailer also showcases Courteney Cox as the determined reporter Gale Weathers, who survived a brutal attack from Ghostface in Scream VI. "Let's unmask this freak," Gale says to Sidney. While David Arquette, who plays Dewey Riley and was married to Weathers, is not seen in the trailer, he is expected to appear in the film, even though his character died in Scream (2022).
Additionally, the trailer seemingly reveals a gruesome death for newcomer Michelle Randolph, when she's seen visiting Stu Macher's (Matthew Lillard) house and falls off the upstairs balcony, landing right on Ghostface's knife. However, it's always a good idea to never assume any deaths are real in the Scream franchise.
Directed by Kevin Williamson, who wrote the script for the original Scream as well as Scream 2 and Scream 4, the seventh installment follows Sidney's storyline as a mom. Campbell is the final girl in all of the other franchise films except Scream VI, from which she was absent due to salary disputes.
In the revival films Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023), Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega were the stars; however, Barrera was fired from appearing in Scream 7 due to her social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war. After her exit, Ortega left the project voluntarily. Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day, Drop) was also supposed to direct the horror film, but left amid intense backlash from fans after Barrera’s firing, even though he didn't fire the actress.
Returning for the seventh installment is Lillard as Stu, the original co-Ghostface killer, along with Skeet Ulrich as Billy Loomis, Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown as siblings Chad and Mindy in the revival films, and Scott Foley as Scream 3's Ghostface, Roman Bridger. The cast of newcomers rounds out with May, Randolph, Joel McHale, Anna Camp, Mckenna Grace, Ethan Embry, Mark Consuelos, Jimmy Tatro, Celeste O’Connor, Asa Germann and Sam Rechner.
While Gooding teased that the new Ghostface killer will be even more violent, Williamson confirmed that no matter what Ghostface's kill count is in the new installment, Sidney will be safe. "I have made it very clear, I think publicly too, that Sidney has been through so much torment and trauma that to give her anything less than a happy ending is mean," he told Ashley Cullins in the Scream tell-all book Your Favorite Scary Movie: How the Scream Films Rewrote the Rules of Horror, released in August. "It’s just sacrilegious."
James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick of the revival films Scream and Scream VI wrote the script. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett and Chad Villella executive produce. Marco Beltrami composes the score. The slasher film hits theaters on February 27th, 2026. Click here to learn everything The Hollywood Reporter knows about Scream 7.
