Matthew Lillard is returning to the Scream franchise as he has joined the cast of Scream 7, but who will he be playing?

Deadline reports that Matthew Lillard has joined the cast of Scream 7. Yes, you read that right. The actor played Stuart ‘Stu’ Macher in the original Scream movie.

Spoilers for a nearly thirty-year-old movie here, but ol’ Stu didn’t exactly fare too well in the first Scream movie. After being unmasked as one of the killers and suffering from stab wounds, he was ultimately killed (or was he?) when Sidney (Neve Campbell) dropped a TV on his head. And this was a ’90s TV, folks. None of this lightweight flatscreen shit. So, given what happened to Stu, it’s not clear how Lillard will be returning or even if he’ll be playing a different character. The last two Scream sequels did bring back Skeet Ulrich as Billy Loomis, but he only appeared in Sam’s (Melissa Barrera) visions. Could they be pulling something similar here? Perhaps flashbacks? I suppose anything is possible.

Lillard posted the following video on Instagram after the news broke.

To make matters more confusing, it was announced this morning that Scott Foley would be returning as well. He played the Ghostface killer (and Sid’s half-brother) in Scream 3.

After sitting out the last movie due to a pay dispute, Neve Campbell returns to star as Sidney Prescott. Courteney Cox is also back as Gale Weathers. The rest of the cast includes Isabel May (Yellowstone: 1883) as Sidney’s teenage daughter, with Celeste O’Connor (Madame Web), Mckenna Grace (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire), Sam Rechner (The Fabelmans), Asa Germaan (Gen V), Anna Camp (True Blood), and Mark Consuelos (Riverdale) also signing on. It was originally believed that Patrick Dempsey might be returning as Mark Kincaid from Scream 3, but it didn’t happen. Joel McHale (Community) has since signed on to play Mark Evans, Sidney’s husband.

The original plan for Scream 7 would have seen Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega returning as Sam and Tara Carpenter, but Spyglass Media fired Barrera after a few pro-Palestinian social media posts that they deemed anti-Semitic. The very next day, it was revealed that Ortega had exited the project as well. It was initially reported that this was due to scheduling conflicts with the second season of Wednesday, but it later emerged that she had wanted a substantial salary increase, which Spyglass refused, so she walked.

That wasn’t the end of the drama either. Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day) was set to direct the movie, but he also departed, calling it a “dream job that turned into a nightmare.” Scream 7 is slated for a February 27, 2026 release.

What do you think of Matthew Lillard returning for Scream 7?