Scream 7 Casts Joel McHale As Sidney Prescott’s Husband Mark

The “Scream” franchise is always throwing a curveball or two at fans with every installment, but it’s safe to say this newest casting report is taking 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 movie in the property) and continuing with “Scream VI,” the future of the horror brand has remained somewhat up in the air following the twin departures of new leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Paramount from attempting to forge on ahead anyway with these proven money-making sequels by doubling down on nostalgia, bringing back Neve Campbell’s final girl Sidney Prescott for “Scream 7” and even roping in original architect/writer Kevin Williamson as director, too.

Now, however, the latest twist in this saga is raising a lot more questions than answers for fans.

Deadline has revealed that a fresh face will be joining the cast of the upcoming seventh “Scream” film: “Community” star Joel McHale, who’s been cast as Sidney’s husband Mark. That might sound odd to longtime fans since, 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 decisionmakers simply couldn’t get Dempsey back for whatever reason and simply recast the role with another handsome hunk … right? Nope! Apparently, Deadline is claiming that McHale is portraying a different character, named Mark Evans, who ended up catching Sidney’s eye at some point in the past and will finally be making an on-screen appearance after only being mentioned offhandedly (along with the couple’s children) in previous movies.

Confused? Yeah, we are, too. Let’s try to make sense of this news below.

Even for a slasher franchise famously been built on the very idea of twist endings and killer reveals, this is a bit much. With deepest apologies to all the McDreamy admirers out there, I’m afraid we have more bad news. Rather than finally bringing back Patrick Dempsey’s character Mark Kincaid, whom we haven’t actually seen since he narrowly survived the bloodbath at the end of “Scream 3,” it appears that the studio is taking “Scream 7” in a surprisingly different (and much more head-scratching) direction. This comes contrary to previous remarks by Dempsey himself (via Entertainment Weekly), when he indicated as recently as October of 2024 that he had “a conversation” about reprising his role as Mark and was “waiting on the script” for the next movie. 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, uh, just so happens to be named Mark, too?

What makes this entire situation so much weirder is that previous directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, known colloquially as Radio Silence, previously “confirmed” (again, via Entertainment Weekly) that Sidney was happily married to Dempsey’s character off-screen and even had children with him. In some throwaway dialogue in the fifth film, it was explained that Sidney’s new family remained in hiding in order to escape the notice of the latest Ghostface killer. Now, canonically, all that’s ever actually stated is that Sidney is married to someone named Mark and, well, I suppose it’s on audiences for assuming that it was the very same Mark from “Scream 3.” That’s obviously going to be the technical loophole that the creative team on “Scream 7” will use to get around this, but wouldn’t it have been easier to just say that McHale’s character is Mark Kincaid?

In any case, McHale joins a cast that includes Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Mason Gooding, and franchise newcomers Celeste O’Connor, Asa Germann, Mckenna Grace, Sam Rechner, Anna Camp, and Isabel May (who will be playing Sidney and Mark’s daughter). “Scream 7” is currently slated to reach theaters on February 27, 2026.