Wes Craven's seminal slasher franchise, Scream, was all but dead in the water following Craven's untimely passing in 2015. With no one left to carry the torch, most fans had accepted the ill fate of the series. Although MTV tried to reboot the franchise (twice) as a TV series, the attempt didn't enjoy anywhere near the same amount of success that the theatrical releases day. But, as if to take advantage of the perfect storm created by the surge of soft reboots in recent years, Ready or Not filmmakers, Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, stepped in and gave fans a modern version of Scream that catered to both newer and older audiences.
2022's Scream premiered last January after a lengthy delay and was the first film to kick Spider-Man: No Way Home off of its perch. At the end of its theatrical run, Scream 5 had pulled in nearly $140 million at the global box office against a measly $24 million budget, all but securing the fate of the sixth installment.
Now, OG Scream star, Courteney Cox, just confirmed that she's coming back to reprise her iconic role as Gale Weathers in Scream 6 and that filming could start as early as June.
As reported by Cinemablend, Cox appeared on the Just For Variety podcast and shared the future of the Scream franchise. As Cox excitedly revealed, she just got the script for Scream 6 and hasn't even had a chance to read it. She added that production is going to start "in June, in Canada" and while she doesn't know if she's supposed to "say anything", she's said far more than enough to get fans hyped.
TLDR; Scream 6 is confirmed and filming will commence in June.
Scream 5, which is a soft reboot of the iconic Slasher franchise, spent three months filming the entire movie from September to November 2020 following several delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Barring any similar circumstances, a June 2022 production would suggest that we'll start seeing more of Scream 6 before the year ends in time for a 2023 release. Unfortunately, Cox did not reveal if her long-time Scream co-star, Neve Campbell, who portrays Sydney Prescott, will join her for Scream 6.
Ultimately, it makes sense for Paramount Pictures to take advantage of the success of Scream 5. Scream 5 was one of the few films that found success in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's better to take a stab at a sequel as soon as possible as opposed to waiting for the nostalgia for the series' particular brand of suspense and horror starts to wear off.
In other news, Paramount delayed several of its movies last year in light of the pandemic-born lockdowns with two more joining the list of postponed movies in January. Hopefully, Scream 5's success inspires the studio to put more confidence in its theatrical releases and to stop delaying highly anticipated sequels like Mission: Impossible 7 and Top Gun 2.
