Woodsboro’s favorite deputy sheriff is back in town: David Arquette will officially reprise his role as Dewey Riley from the first five “Scream” movies in the upcoming seventh installment of the horror franchise.
It’s not yet clear exactly how this is possible, as Dewey was vicously stabbed to death in the fifth film, “Scream” (2022), by Ghostface (later revealed to be Mikey Madison’s Amber Freeman). But he isn’t the only miraculous resurrection in the “Scream” universe: Scott Foley and Matthew Lillard are also set to revive their now-deceased characters in Spyglass and Paramount Pictures’ “Scream 7.”
Familiar faces Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown are also set to star, alongside “Scream” newcomers Mckenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor, Joel McHale, Asa Germann, Sam Rechner, Anna Camp, Mark Consuelos and Ethan Embry.
Cox previously expressed hope that filmmakers could find a way to bring Dewey (who was married to her character Gale Weathers) back from the dead: “I understand the reasons they did it, but whoa! Talk about a missed character,” she said. “Dewey is so loved by ‘Scream’ fans. They have to figure it out.”
Kevin Williamson, who first the wrote “Scream,” makes his “Scream” directorial debut with the seventh film, due in theaters on Feb. 27, 2026.
Gooding teased what fans can expect from the new film, telling Variety in February, “It feels like an amplification of what’s came before, and there’s no better indication of that than Kevin Williamson, who wrote the original, coming back now to direct. I think that Ghostface is absolutely the most brutal he’s been. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s some stuff that they do to the human body that I feel like Kevin is breaking new ground with.”
Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, who starred in the first two movies of the “Scream” reboot, are not returning for the seventh movie. Barrera was fired from “Scream 7” last year over social media posts about Israel. Shortly after, it was reported that Ortega was no longer available due to her shooting schedule for Netflix’s “Wednesday.”
Patrick Dempsey told Variety last weekend that, while he had hoped to return as detective Mark Kincaid for “Scream 7,” “It just didn’t work out and we were dealing with the fires and everything that was going on.”
Deadline was first to report the news of Arquette’s casting.
