30 years of 'Scream': A guide to all 7 movies

Before "Scream," horror movies were just plain old horror movies.

They certainly weren’t meta, elevated or satirical. The 1980s marked a peak for the genre with franchises like "Halloween," "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street." But when the 1990s made irony fashionable, horror adapted, most notably in the form of Kevin Williamson’s "Scream." The story of Ghostface, a masked killer in small-town Woodsboro, California, who preys on locals according to the rules of horror movies, "Scream" cleverly satirized the slasher franchise. Then it became one, spawning six movies (so far) that have earned $911 million according to box-office tracker The Numbers. And adding to that total will be "Scream 7," in theaters Friday.

Today, "Scream" no longer stands outside the horror industry but sits near the top of it. Here’s how the franchise unfolded over the last 30 years.

SCREAM (1996)

It was "Halloween" meets "Friends," with a group of attractive youngsters — played by Neve Campbell, Drew Barrymore, Courteney Cox and her not-yet spouse David Arquette — being terrorized by a masked killer. Something about it felt different. For starters, who knew there were rules to horror movies? Yet as the story progressed, you realized you did know. Director Wes Craven, already an old hand thanks to his "Evil Dead" films, juggled the humor with real scares, helping turn "Scream" into a critical hit that earned $173 million worldwide.

SCREAM 2 (1997) Craven and Williamson returned with the main cast — well, minus a few — plus Sarah Michelle Gellar ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer). During production, drafts of the screenplay began leaking online, according to The Hollywood Reporter, so Williamson circulated fake ones. In the end, he went ultra-meta and concocted a film with the film called "Stab." At the box-office, "Scream 2” fell just shy of its predecessor with $172 million.

SCREAM 3 (2000) "I think I’ll die if you make me write a new ‘Scream,’" an exhausted Williamson told Dimension Films according to his 2021 interview with The Independent. (He was running the shows "Dawson’s Creek" and "Wasteland" at the time.) Williamson instead gave writing duties to Ehren Kruger, whose later credits would include "The Ring," "Transformers" and "F1." Patrick Dempsey and Parker Posey joined the cast, but reviews were dismissive and the box-office stalled at $161.8 million.

SCREAM 4 (2011)

Fifteen years after the events of the first film, Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott returns to Woodsboro, only to find yet another Ghostface on the loose. Stylized as "Scre4m," this installment was again written by Williamson and includes many nods to social media and new technology (Erik Knudsen plays a livestreamer). In a sign of diminishing returns, though, it earned just $97 million, a franchise low. It was Craven’s final film before his death in 2015.

SCREAM (2022) Film No. 5 may be confusingly titled, but it signaled a renewal after an 11-year hiatus. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett ("Ready Or Not") teamed up with two new writers, a next-gen cast (Melissa Barrera, Mason Gooding and Mikey Madison) and the old crew (Cox, Arquette, Campbell) for a relatively straightforward whodunit. Critics praised it (even Jordan Peele called it "clever") and audiences turned it into a $138.9 million success.

SCREAM VI (2023) The kids we just met in Woodsboro relocate to the Big Apple, only to realize they’ve brought Ghostface with them. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett returned for this fast-arriving follow-up, as did cast members Barrera and Gooding. Campbell, however, sat this one out due to a pay dispute, making it the only "Scream" film without her. It earned $169 million, the franchise’s biggest haul since "Scream 2” in 1997.

SCREAM 7 (2026)

In November 2023, studio Spyglass Media Group fired Barrera from this film over her social media posts criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. In turn, director Christopher Landon ("Happy Death Day") received death threats over her firing despite insisting it was not his decision, he later explained to Deadline. Eventually, Landon bowed out. The result: Thirty years after the original "Scream," Williamson is directing his first installment. Campbell is back as Sidney Prescott, trying to protect her daughter (Isabel May) from an all-too-familiar predator. At this point, the only constants in the series are Cox as journalist Gale Weathers and Roger L. Jackson as the sneering voice of Ghostface.