Kevin Williamson’s Original SCREAM 5 and SCREAM 6 Plans Featured a Twisted Jill Sequel and a Gale Weathers Love Story
The Scream franchise almost took a seriously different and twisted turn.
Before the filmmaking team behind Ready or Not stepped in to direct Scream (2022) and Scream VI, original franchise writer Kevin Williamson had mapped out a completely different future for Ghostface.
If he had his way, Emma Roberts’ killer cousin Jill Roberts wouldn’t have been wheeled out of the hospital at the end of Scream 4… she would’ve become the face of the franchise.
Williamson recently opened up about his abandoned vision, and it sounds like it would’ve been a chaotic, meta fever dream.
Back in 2011, Scream 4 ended with Jill revealed as the mastermind killer. But Williamson originally imagined a darker outcome where she actually got away with it.
“In my original conceit, Jill survived and went to college,” Williamson told CinePop, referring to Sidney Prescott's teen cousin who was introduced in the fourth installment, and revealed to be Ghostface.
“She got away with it, all the killings in Scream 4 she got away with, and she was now the new Sidney and she was the new celebrity victim, and she was loving it.
“And someone figured her out and started killing all the people in her life, and so in order for her not to be exposed as the killer, she had to find the killer. And that was Scream 5.”
Jill as the “final girl” celebrity. Jill soaking up media attention. Jill hunting a new Ghostface while desperately protecting her own secret. It flips the formula inside out in a way that feels perfectly on-brand for this franchise. Instead of rooting for innocence, audiences would’ve followed a killer trying to survive her own sequel.
I would’ve liked to see that! But, that version of Scream 5 never happened. Instead, the 2022 film introduced a new generation of characters led by Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera, shifting the focus to Sam Carpenter. The setting stayed familiar, but the franchise energy pivoted toward legacy and reinvention.
Williamson didn’t stop at one sequel either. He also had a plan for what would’ve been his version of Scream VI, and this one would’ve put Gale Weathers front and center.
“My Scream 6 was, now that Gale Weathers is trying to build a life without Dewey, because I would have killed Dewey too – yes, I had planned to kill him as well – she was trying to rebuild her life, and it was about her finding love.”
Williamson continued, “In a weird way she goes through exactly the same thing Sidney went through in Scream 1, which was, she's dating a man, is he or isn't he the killer. She doesn't know.”
That’s a pretty solid setup. Gale stepping into Sidney’s old shoes. A romance wrapped in suspicion. A grown-up psychological slasher angle centered on trust and grief. It would’ve been a full-circle moment for the character first played by Courteney Cox, turning the franchise’s sharp-tongued reporter into the emotional lead.
Instead, the released version of Scream VI brought the action to New York City and doubled down on the younger ensemble, while still keeping legacy characters in the mix.
Now the story has come full circle in an unexpected way. After stepping away following Scream 4, Williamson is back for Scream 7, and this time he’s not just writing it, he’s directing it. Cox returns as Gale Weathers alongside Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott.
It’s fascinating to think about the alternate timeline where Jill Roberts became the franchise’s manipulative queen bee and Gale navigated her own romantic whodunit.
Still, there’s something poetic about Williamson returning to steer the series himself. After all these years of masks, meta commentary, and movie rules, he’s finally calling the shots.
Scream 7 hits theaters on February 27, and now fans can’t help but wonder if any of those wild original ideas might still find their way into the blood-soaked future of Woodsboro.