After Scream 5 delivered a strong showing at the box office and earned rave reviews praising it for revitalizing the franchise, naturally, Scream 6 was immediately slapped onto the fast track. However, the next film will be without series star Neve Campbell who has walked away from the new installment after receiving a salary offer that didn’t exactly respect her contribution to the series.
Campbell, a fierce equal pay advocate who has spoken up before about being unfairly compensated by the Scream franchise, announced the news in a statement sent to the trades where she made it clear that her exit is over not being paid her worth. She also thanked Scream fans for their love and support over the years. Via Variety:
“Sadly, I won’t be making the next ‘Scream ‘film,” Campbell said in a statement to Variety. “As a woman I have had to work extremely hard in my career to establish my value, especially when it comes to ‘Scream.’ I felt the offer that was presented to me did not equate to the value I have brought to the franchise. It’s been a very difficult decision to move on. To all my ‘Scream’ fans, I love you. You’ve always been so incredibly supportive to me. I’m forever grateful to you and to what this franchise has given me over the past 25 years.”
In a previous conversation for Variety back in October 2020, Campbell and Jamie Lee Curtis revealed that they were not paid well for their horror outings, with Campbell sharing that the Weinsteins screwed her on the back end deal for Scream 3.
“There’s always the promise of back end,” Campbell said. “And then, of course, it’s drowned in publicity and costs and all the reasons they say, ‘Oh, actually no, we didn’t make the amount of money that we’re claiming we made in all the press, so that we don’t have to give you that,’ unfortunately. It was the Weinsteins.”
Clearly, Campbell is done playing money games with the franchise.
(Via Variety)
