Hayden Panettiere Poised for a Killer Scream 7 Comeback?

File this under: unexpected but very welcome. Entertainment Weekly just casually dropped a nugget that suggests Hayden Panettiere is back as Kirby Reed in Scream 7. No big splashy announcement, no teaser, just a line in a catch-up piece. Which, honestly, is a very Scream way to break news.

Wait, did EW really say that?

Yep. In a 'Where Are They Now?' article about the Nashville cast, Entertainment Weekly slid in this line about Panettiere:

'Next, she'll team up with Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott for Scream 7 (2026).'

There hasn’t been an official studio announcement, but that reads like: Kirby’s back. Fans have been rooting for this since Scream 4 in 2011, when Kirby stole the movie and seemed to die near the end. A decade-plus of wishful thinking paid off in Scream VI, which revealed she survived and is now an FBI agent. Bringing her into Scream 7 alongside Sidney? That is catnip for this franchise’s die-hards.

How we got to this version of Scream 7

This movie has had a journey. Spyglass Media and Paramount Pictures originally lined up a Scream 7 built around the 2022 Scream and Scream VI leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, with Christopher Landon (Freaky, Happy Death Day) directing. Then it unraveled. Ortega reportedly asked for a substantial raise — and if you remember Neve Campbell stepping away from Scream VI over pay, you know how these standoffs tend to go. After that, Barrera was fired following comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war that didn’t sit well with Spyglass. Landon exited the project soon after.

So the film was re-developed. The new plan puts Neve Campbell back in the driver’s seat as Sidney Prescott. Kevin Williamson — who wrote the original Scream — is now directing from a screenplay by Guy Busick (co-writer of the 2022 and VI entries). Busick crafted the story with his previous co-writer James Vanderbilt, who’s also a producer on the recent sequels.

Who’s in Scream 7

• Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott, back in the lead.
• Hayden Panettiere is set to reprise Kirby Reed (per EW’s line above).
• Courteney Cox is back as reporter/author Gale Weathers.
• Isabel May (1883) plays Sidney’s daughter.
• Joel McHale (Community) plays Sidney’s husband, Mark Evans.
• Mckenna Grace (Ghostbusters) and her Ghostbusters co-star Celeste O'Connor are aboard.
• Asa Germann (Gen V), Sam Rechner (The Fabelmans), Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect), Mark Consuelos (Riverdale), and Ethan Embry (The Devil's Candy) are in the ensemble.
• Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown return as Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin; two of the 'core four' from the last two movies are no longer in the mix.
• David Arquette is back as Dewey, who is… very much dead, which makes this interesting.
• Also oddly included: Matthew Lillard (original Scream) and Scott Foley (Scream 3), who both played Ghostface killers that did not survive their movies. Make of that what you will.

Release date

Scream 7 is set to hit theaters on February 27, 2026.

Between Kirby’s resurrection arc, Sidney back in the spotlight, and a cast list that includes multiple supposedly dead people, this is either a wild misdirection or Scream leaning hard into meta weirdness. Either way, I’m in. You excited to see Kirby suit up again?