The Scream franchise always throws a ball or two at fans with each installment, but it's safe to say that this latest casting report takes things to an even more confusing extreme. Despite getting a fresh and modernized update starting with 2022's annoyingly titled Scream (which was actually the fifth film in the property) and continuing with Scream VI, the future of the horror franchise remained somewhat up in the air after the twin departures of new leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. Of course, that didn't stop Paramount from trying to push ahead anyway with these proven money-making sequels, doubling down on the nostalgia. Nev Campbell's Last Girlfriend Sidney Prescott Returning for 'Scream 7' and even roped in original architect/writer Kevin Williamson as director, too.

Now, however, the latest twist in this saga raises far more questions than answers for fans.

Deadline revealed that a new face will be joining the cast of the upcoming seventh "Scream" film: "Community" star Joel McHale, who has been cast as Mark, Sydney's husband. That might sound strange to longtime fans, because of course a character and potential love interest named Mark Kincaid already appeared way back during 2000's Scream 3, a cop memorably played by Patrick Dempsey. So it stands to reason that the decision makers just couldn't bring Dempsey back for whatever reason and just recast the role with another good looking guy... right? No! Apparently, Deadline claims that McHale portrays a different a character, named Mark Evans, who eventually caught Sidney's attention at some point in the past and would finally appear on screen after only being casually mentioned (along with the couple's children) in the previous films.

Confused? Yes, we are too. Let's try to understand this news below.

Even for a slasher franchise famously built on the very idea of ​​twist endings and murderous revelations, this is a bit much. With deepest apologies to all the McDreamy fans out thereI'm afraid we have more bad news. Instead of finally bringing back Patrick Dempsey's character Mark Kincaid, who we haven't actually seen since narrowly surviving the bloodbath at the end of Scream 3 , it seems the studio is taking Scream 7 in a surprisingly different (and very more head scratching) direction. This contradicts Dempsey's own earlier remarks (via Entertainment Weekly), when back in October 2024 he indicated that he had "conversations" about reprising the role of Mark and that he was "waiting for the script" for the next film. Instead, we're apparently getting a brand new character played by Joel McHale (who himself is a veteran of the horror genre, having appeared in 2023's It's A Wonderful Knife, Sam Levinson's Assassination Nation, and more) .. Who, too so his name is mark?

What makes this whole situation so much weirder is that previous directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillette, known colloquially as Radio Silence, previously "confirmed" (again, via Entertainment Weekly) that Sidney was happily married to Dempsey's off-screen character and even had children with him. In some scrapped dialogue in the fifth film, it was explained that Sidney's new family stayed in hiding to avoid the attention of Ghostface's newest killer. Now, canonically, all that is ever actually said is that Sidney is married someone called Mark and, well, I guess it's the audience because they assume it's the same Mark from Scream 3. That's obviously going to be the technical loophole that the Scream 7 creative team will use to get around this, but wouldn't it have been easier to just say that McHale's character is Mark Kincaid?

Either way, McHale joins a cast that includes Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Mason Gooding, and franchise newcomers Celeste O'Connor, Asa German, McKenna Grace, Sam Rechner, Anna Camp, and Isabel May (who will play Sydney and Mark daughter). Scream 7 is currently set to arrive in theaters on February 27, 2026.