For decades, the ‘Scream’ franchise has thrived on shocking twists, bold reinventions, and a gleeful willingness to gut its own rulebook. However, as Skeet Ulrich, one of its most legendary killers, says, the show nearly went down one of its most sinister and audacious plots ever.
Ulrich, in a recent interview, disclosed that the revival films had initially planned a three-movie cycle that would turn Sam Carpenter, the daughter of Billy Loomis, into the next Ghostface. This revelation rearranges the way viewers can retrospectively view the previous two movies. It also highlights the extent to which ‘Scream 7’ took a drastic turn when the creative team was shaken by production turmoil.
Sam’s Ghostface Turn Was Originally Planned As A Trilogy Arc
In 2022, when ‘Scream’ was revived under the direction of Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Billy Loomis’ legacy was the emotional core of its re-telling. Ulrich’s appearances as the murderous teen in the 1996 original gave Sam Carpenter a psychological tug-of-war between heroism and inherited violence. However, as Ulrich now confirms, these haunting visions were not mere stylistic allusions but seeds that were planted for a much bigger plan.
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“When we talked about coming back for 5, it was a three-picture arc…to slowly turn his daughter into the killer,” Ulrich explained to EW. Basically, Sam Carpenter, who is the new franchise protagonist, was never intended to remain on the side of the angels. The darkness that was alluded to in ‘Scream’ (2022) and ‘Scream VI’ was not a simple thematic flavor. It was foreshadowing.
Those moments when Sam embraced violence a little too willingly, those flashes of Billy urging her to “finish it”. And her brutal, almost cathartic takedown of Ghostface at the end of VI all meant something. Fans had a feeling that there was more than meets the eye beneath her character arc. And now we know it was not an accident. The filmmakers were purposefully leading to a disclosure that would have turned Sam into the most provocative Ghostface to date.
She is a murderer born not of trauma but of heritage, an heir to her father and his perverse blood. Melissa Barrera herself once confessed that she would like to visit that turn. “It would be my dream for Sam to be Ghostface,” she told one outlet. And she wasn’t alone. A heel turn in the seventh film was anticipated by many viewers. However, the production shake-ups came and changed all that.
Why ‘Scream 7’ Found A New Path
The dominoes started dropping rapidly. Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin left because of time. Online controversy led Barrera to drop out of the cast. Jenna Ortega departed shortly afterwards because of schedule changes. Director Christopher Landon then retired. What was supposed to be the last book in the trilogy now didn’t have Sam, continuity, and a creative team to complete the work they had started.
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The studio took a radical decision not to impose a broken narrative, but to reinvent the seventh film. Enter Kevin Williamson, the screenwriter who started it all, and the return of Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott. It was a backward turn, but not a retrogressive one. Williamson is not merely reviving the past, but he is redefining the franchise. Now we’ll see Sidney’s new life as a mother and wife, with her children becoming the next targets of Ghostface.
Sam Carpenter’s arc was not only altered but was erased and replaced with a story grounded in the legacy of another kind: the ongoing resilience of Scream’s original heroine. That change is bittersweet. Fans who had been following Sam’s development and her own darkness are left wondering what could have been. However, some are excited to have Sidney back in the middle of her narrative.
