Understanding scream Franchise Star Wants to Direct the Next Movie, And It Might Actually Be Perfect

It wouldn’t be unprecedented for an actor to direct a Scream movie. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, part of the directorial collective Radio Silence, was also an actor in V/H/S and Southbound before co-directing Scream (the fifth one) and Scream VI, both with his collaborator Tyler Gillett. For Scream 7, original Scream-writer Kevin Williamson got to direct, but he has since said he won’t be back to do it again. Poker Face‘s Lilla and Nora Zuckerman are attached to write, but no new director is confirmed meaning the director’s chair remains open and speculation remains high.

Now, however, we have at least one contender who wants to do it, and it’s a veteran of the franchise. Yes, it is an actor, but one whose directorial resume includes two theatrical features, a TV movie, two shorts, and 12 episodes of Cougar Town. Speaking at the Toronto Film Festival, Courteney Cox, who has played reporter Gale Weathers since the very beginning of the Scream franchise (and is the only actor to appear in every installment), declared herself interested.

She Has the Right Track Record

“Nobody knows more about that movie than I do…I mean, and the creator, and Wes Craven, and the writers, and everybody who’s been in it,” Cox said (via Deadline.) “But I think it’d be great and fun and a good publicity thing.”

While Cox’s history and familiarity with the Scream franchise is certainly a mark in her favor when it comes to putting her in the director’s chair, it isn’t just her longevity as an actress in the series that makes her a good fit. Cox’s actual directorial body of work so far makes her a good match for the material. Of her three full-length films, two are based on true-crime documentaries, and the other is a comedy about suicide.

Talhotblond, her movie for Lifetime, involves an Internet love triangle, with the female participant not being who she says she is, and one of the men ultimately killing the other. Evil Genius, her latest feature, is about a bank robber who may have been forced to commit the crime with a bomb collar strapped to his neck. In between the two films came Before I Go, in which Seann William Scott plays a man suffering from depression who plans to off himself, but not before tying up any loose ends in his life. Just combining all three of those plots sounds like elements you’d find in a Scream sequel but it also demonstrates that Cox has an affinity for crime and dark humor. And with nobody else seemingly obviously or immediately in line to helm the next installment in the franchise, she has to be considered a frontrunner, and the studio would be silly not to at least consider her for the job. “Star tries her hand at directing next part of her popular series” is also an interesting approach to a franchise that has been running for so long as compared to “up-and-coming filmmakers sign on for part 8 of a franchise.”