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Neve Campbell had recently announced she was not returning to the Scream franchise with the upcoming Scream 6 film saying she didn’t feel valued. Campbell was the original Scream protagonist Sidney Prescott and has been playing the character for almost 30 years.
“As a woman, I have had to work extremely hard in my career to establish my value, especially when it comes to Scream,” Campbell said in the statement back in June. “I felt the offer that was presented to me did not equate to the value I have brought to the franchise.”
Now, in a new exclusive with People, the star is explaining what happened behind the scenes that led to what she said was a difficult decision and why couldn’t find it in herself to return for the next film.
“In my soul, I just couldn’t do that. I couldn’t walk on set feeling that…feeling undervalued and feeling the unfairness, or lack of fairness, around that,” Campbell said. “I think it’s really important for us to be valued and to fight to be valued. I honestly don’t believe that if I were a man and had done five installments of a huge blockbuster franchise over 25 years, that the number that I was offered would be the number that would be offered to a man.”
This past year, Campbell returned to the franchise after 11 years in Scream 5, but also called Scream, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick. Though billed as a relaunch of the film series, the film is a direct sequel to Scream 4 and is the first film in the series to not be directed by Wes Craven, following his death in 2015.
In another interview with Entertainment Weekly though, Campbell said that she would return, but the terms have to be right and fair. “I care about these movies. If they were to come to me with an amount that felt in keeping with the value that I bring them, I would certainly consider it,” she said. “I care about these new directors. They did such a great job on the last one and I wish them luck.”
A sequel was announced in February 2022, that is scheduled for release on March 31, 2023.
