Scream 7 almost looked very different.

Speaking with EW, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett reveal that they had some early plans in place for Scream 7 before deciding to focus their efforts elsewhere. The duo make clear that they didn't get as far as connecting with writers about it, but they paint a picture of a film that would've taken the franchise in a dark and particularly intense direction. As Bettinelli-Olpin explains:

"We never read a draft of any version of Scream 7 that we were going to do because we had left to do Abigail before that. The thing that we had in our minds for Scream 7 was sort of like, 'How hard can we go with this?' It was the thing that we talked a lot about. For us, it was always this idea of, [if] Scream VI is like a secret feel-good movie, Scream 7's going to f--- you up. That was as much as we ever got to.

Gillett then adds more details about the approach they envisioned in terms of scope, explaining that they would have made the film more contained and immediate than the more sprawling, New York City-set Scream 6:

"Given that we expanded the sort of scope of the story by going to New York, the other thing that we had talked about — just Matt and I, by the way, it wasn't a conversation with the writers — was, 'How do you do the opposite for 7?' Like, shrink it down and make it this like ultra-contained, almost continuous, like minute-to-minute thing. But outside of our own stupid idea, we weren't privy to any plan beyond just, 'There's gonna be another one.'"

Both 2022's Scream and its 2023 follow-up were well-received critically and were box office successes. The two Radio Silence films introduced a handful of new characters, including sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter, played by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, respectively, who were poised to carry the franchise forward.

After Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett decided to pursue Abigail instead of another Ghostface outing, director Christopher Landon was brought on board to continue the story of the Carpenter sisters. This version of Scream 7 fell apart, however, after Barrera was fired for her inflammatory tweets regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict and Ortega left due to scheduling conflicts, which in turn resulted in Landon leaving.

The film then pivoted again, with original Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson returning to the franchise to write and direct the seventh installment. After sitting the previous movie out due to a pay dispute, Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott to face off against a new Ghostface who has targeted her teenage daughter.

Scream 7 reviews have been generally negative from critics, with the film sitting at a lackluster 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. This makes it the lowest-rated film in the franchise by a significant margin, with Radio Silence's 2022 and 2023 entries sitting at 76% and 77%, respectively.

Given the trajectory of the prior two films, it's possible Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett's original version of Scream 7 would have fared better with critics. Commercially, though, Williamson's new Ghostface outing is looking like a winner, with the film now eying an opening weekend of $60 million or more, which would mark a new franchise best.

Scream 8 is already in the works, but Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett seemingly don't have any immediate plans to return to the franchise. The duo's next movie is Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, which hits theaters on March 20. Though their original vision for Scream 7 will probably not see the light of day, it clearly would have taken the franchise in a different direction.