Neve Campbell in talks for Scream 5 return: 'We're negotiating'

You can't have a Scream movie without the legendary Scream Queen herself.

Nearly a decade after Scream 4 hit theaters in 2011, the slasher franchise star Neve Campbell says she's currently "negotiating" to return for Scream 5, the pseudo-reboot directed by Ready or Not helmers Matthew Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.

"We’re having conversations. I have been approached about it,” Campbell told Rotten Tomatoes in an interview. “The timing’s a bit challenging because of COVID. You know, we only started the conversation maybe a month and a half ago, so it’s going to take some time to figure out how it’s all going to work out... We’re negotiating, so we’ll see."

Campbell is the mainstay of the Scream movies, launched by director Wes Craven in 1996. As Sidney Prescott, it's her story that fueled this franchise and influenced the slasher flick boom. It all started when Sidney, a high school teen in a small town plagued by rumors surrounding her mother's death, became the target of a serial killer wearing the GhostFace mask. The movies poked fun at other horror movie tropes, while also gaining in popularity.

In a now-deleted YouTube video interview with Jake Hamilton, per PEOPLE, Campbell said she was initially "really apprehensive about doing another Scream without Wes because he was such a genius and he is the reason they are what they are." But she now tells Rotten Tomatoes that Olpin and Gillett wrote her "a very touching letter about Wes Craven and how he was such an inspiration to them and how they really want to honor him."

"That meant a great, great deal to me," she remarked. "So we’ll see. Hopefully we can all see eye to eye on the project and find a way to make it."

Related content:

• Neve Campbell reveals she and JJ Feild adopted a baby boy
• Neve Campbell recalls filming Scream: 'None of us thought it would be huge'
• Watch David Arquette react to watching his Scream scenes opposite ex-wife Courteney Cox