Matthew Lillard and Scott Foley Are Returning for “Scream 7”. But What Really Happened to Their Characters?

Spoiler alert: Two of the Scream franchise’s killers are rising from the dead! Or are they?

On Thursday, Jan. 30, Deadline reported that Scream 3’s Scott Foley, 52, would return for the horror series’ seventh film, due out in February 2026, in an undisclosed role.

The same day, Matthew Lillard, 55, who starred in the Wes Craven directed original Scream, posted a video on Instagram suggesting that he too would appear in the upcoming sequel. The cryptic clip appeared to show Lillard’s hand scrawling his character’s memorable line from the 1996 slasher flick: “My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me!”

PEOPLE has reached out to Lillard’s reps and Spyglass Media Group, which owns the Scream franchise, for comment.

Related: Mark Consuelos Joins the Cast of Scream 7 — and Wife Kelly Ripa Wants to Know, 'Are You the Killer?'

But wait, Scream fans are no doubt thinking, didn’t both Lillard and Foley’s characters die in their respective films? It sure seemed like it at the time!

Details about the plot of director and original Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson’s upcoming sequel, which also sees Neve Campbell, 51, and Courteney Cox, 60, reprising their roles, are scarce. But the franchise has accumulated plenty of borderline soapy twists over the years, and while it remains to be seen whether Lillard and Foley will actually be returning as their original characters, it’s definitely not unheard of for horror movie villains to return from the (seeming) grave. With all that in mind, it’s worth taking a look back at what actually happened to Lillard and Foley’s characters in Scream and Scream 3.

Related: Who Is Ghostface in 'Scream' ? A Guide to All the Killers in the Franchise

In 1996’s Scream, Lillard brought an antic, unhinged energy to the role of Stu Macher, best friend of Skeet Ulrich’s Billy Loomis and boyfriend of Rose McGowan’s Tatum Riley. Late in the film, it’s revealed that both Billy and Stu are in fact the serial killers behind the iconic Ghostface mask. Their elaborate plan to murder Campbell’s Sidney Prescott and frame her father for their killing spree is thwarted, however, when Sidney drops a TV on Stu, seemingly killing him, and shoots Billy in the head. (Lillard did have cameos in Scream 2 (1997) and the fifth movie, Scream (2022), the former as a partygoer and the latter in a voiceover role.)

Here's the metatextual twist though: Lillard revealed in a 2009 interview that his character was originally meant to return as Ghostface in Scream 3, having survived his injuries. However, Williamson’s original outline for the third film, which centered on another wave of high school murders, was ultimately scrapped following the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. But it’s entirely possible that screenwriter Guy Busick has drawn from Williamson’s initial idea for Stu’s return in Scream 7.

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The version of Scream 3 that ultimately made it to the big screen moved the action to Hollywood, where Sidney — along with Cox’s Gale Weathers and David Arquette’s Dewey Riley — face yet another string of Ghostface murders, this time centered on the production of a third Stab film based on the masked killer.

Foley joined the cast as Stab 3 director Roman Bridger, who at one point appears to have been killed by Ghostface. It’s later revealed that he faked his own death and has actually taken on the Ghostface mantle in a typically elaborate scheme to kill Sidney due to a truly byzantine grudge he harbors against her. Roman fares no better than Billy and Stu, however, with Sidney stabbing him repeatedly and Dewey shooting him in the head.

Notably, Roman also reveals a connection to Billy and Stu, explaining that he was the mastermind behind the duo’s crimes in the first film and had urged Billy to pin their murders on Stu. With both Foley and Lillard returning, it seems possible that that whole dynamic may play out — though it’s hard to imagine how Roman survived a bullet to the head.

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