Scream 7 Casts Joel McHale in a Role That Will Make Longtime Fans Pretty Upset

Production on the seventh installment of the Scream franchise is in full-swing, and news out of the set in Atlanta is revealing another popular actor has joined the cast. Community and Animal Control star Joel McHale is set for a role in Scream 7, which should be great news for fans everywhere. The people love Joel McHale, but the role he’s taking on in Scream 7 is what will have franchise fans disappointed.

According to Deadline, McHale has been tapped to play a man named Mark Evans, the husband of Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott. This means that Patrick Dempsey likely isn’t involved in the story, as many had been speculating ahead of Scream 7.

Dempsey played Detective Mark Kincaid back in Scream 3, and that film ended with Sidney and that Mark getting together. In Scream (2022), Kincaid doesn’t ever appear, but Sidney refers to her husband as Mark, leading fans to believe that she and Detective Kincaid got married.

McHale’s character is also named Mark, but this isn’t a recasting situation. It seems like Sidney went on to marry a man named Mark that wasn’t Mark Kincaid, which keeps continuity with the comments about her family she makes in the fifth Scream.

Even more frustrating for fans is the fact that Sidney was supposed to have married Mark Kincaid. It was never specified on-screen that she had, but Scream (2022) and Scream 6 directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin confirmed in an interview with EW that the Mark who Sidney married was in fact the same one played by Patrick Dempsey.

“Mark Kincaid! Mark Kincaid is Sid’s husband,” Bettenelli-Olpin confirmed back in 2022. Gillett added, “Yeah. It is. Officially on record!”

[RELATED: Everything We Know About Scream 7]

It remains to be seen exactly what will go down in Scream 7 to reveal the identity of Sidney’s husband. It seems logical that this Mark Evans is the man she’s been married to this whole time, and his first name was chosen specifically to make sense of the phone call between Sidney and her husband two movies prior.

Then again, there’s always the chance that Sidney did, in fact, marry Mark Kincaid. The two of them could’ve started a family and gotten divorced, paving the way for Sidney to get remarried to a totally different Mark.

Sidney’s family will play a substantial role in the story of Scream 7, which returns to Prescott to the spotlight after Campbell sat out Scream 6. Isabel May, the breakout star of Yellowstone prequel 1883, was tapped to play Sidney’s daughter.

The cast of Scream 7 also includes franchise newcomers Mckenna Grace, Anna Camp, and Celeste O’Connor. Courteney Cox will again be reprising her role of Gale Weathers (the only character to appear in every Scream movie), and Mason Gooding will be returning to play Chad Meeks-Martin.