Parker Posey Wants to Return for Scream 7; Here’s How That Could Make Sense
Parker Posey has an idea for how her character can return to Scream, and we have a few of our own.
Table of Contents
To say that Scream VI (2023) is a success would be an understatement. It met with high praise from fans and critics, and less than a month after its release it became the franchise’s highest earner at the domestic box office. So, even though Scream 7 isn’t officially announced yet, it feels like a sure thing that it will happen. And with any new Scream movie comes the inevitable fan speculation about who is going to be in it, and who might return.
The return of Hayden Panettiere as Kirby Reed in Scream VI opened the doors to many legacy characters coming back for at least one more movie. One character who deserves more Scream time is Jennifer Jolie as played by the amazing Parker Posey. Jolie certainly seems dead towards the end of Scream 3 (2000), but Kirby’s return suggests that if we’re not 100% sure a Scream character is dead, then maybe they aren’t. Or maybe there’s another way to bring our favorite characters and actors back. Such is the case with Parker Posey.
Beware of spoilers for many movies from the Scream franchise throughout this article!
What Parker Posey Says About a Potential Scream Return
Recently, Parker Posey talked about returning to Scream in an interview on All Of It, a radio show and podcast hosted by Alison Stewart and produced at WNYC Studios. While laughing, Posey said, “Oh, I wish they hadn’t killed me. I begged Wes. . .I’m like always for an alternate universe. . .Yes, bring me back. Figure it out.”
Parker Posey was on the show to talk about a play she is starring in, an adaptation of The Seagull by Anton Checkhov. The reason Scream was brought up is because the directors of Scream (2022) and Scream VI, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, were the next guests on the show. Though Posey and the Scream directors didn’t speak directly to each other on air, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett were asked if they heard Posey’s pitch. Bettinelli-Olpin responded, “We did. We are Parker Posey fans. We love Jennifer Jolie and hope that there’s more story for her character.”
Parker Posey then doubled down on her bid to be in the next Scream a few weeks later in an interview with Comicbook.com. While referring to her Scream comments from her previous interview, Posey said, “I actually pitched, ‘Can I just be in another dimension and come back?'” She continued, “I hope so. I would love to do that. That was really fun. I can’t believe Wes Craven let me get away with some of the silly stuff I was doing.”
Jennifer Jolie Might Not be Dead
If we go by Parker Posey’s quick pitch for Jennifer Jolie’s return, Scream 7 would be completely ridiculous. Opening up a Scream multiverse isn’t the direction most fans would probably want the series to go. The slasher franchise is known for its comedy, but that usually takes the form of meta commentary rather than over-the-top plot elements. Jennifer Jolie stepping through a portal from a parallel universe where she survived is a step way too far.
One way the makers of Scream 7 could potentially bring back Jennifer Jolie is to simply say that she survived the wounds she sustained in Scream 3. We see Jennifer stabbed at least twice (once in the back and once in the stomach) before falling through a mirror, apparently dead. Kirby Reed survived the same number of on-screen stab wounds in Scream 4 (2011). Besides, Scream VI set (or rather, continued) a precedent of seeing characters stabbed multiple times yet miraculously surviving. Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) is a particularly egregious example of this, being stabbed many times by two Ghostfaces yet still surviving.
Chad is one of multiple characters who live through Ghostface attacks in Scream VI. Who’s to say that Jennifer Jolie couldn’t also survive? Maybe she did, and since then she’s been in hiding. Still, with so many people stabbed and surviving in the newer movies, maybe we should just accept the fact that Jennifer Jolie is dead. For Ghostface to truly feel like a threat, characters need to stay dead, even beloved characters. That doesn’t mean Parker Posey can’t return to the franchise though. In fact, we can bring her back with a variation of Posey’s ridiculous multiverse pitch that makes total sense, even if it is a bit convoluted.
The Stab Movies Are the Key to Jennifer Jolie’s Return
There is a part of the Scream universe that is completely ridiculous: the Stab movies. Stab is the in-universe, movie-within-the-movie franchise that was originally based on Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and the Ghostface murders she endured. Scream 4 reveals that the first three Stab movies are adaptations of the “true” events as seen in the first three Scream movies (and as written in books by Gale Weathers). The third movie is Stab 3: Hollywood Horror, and it is based on Gale Weathers’ book about the events seen in Scream 3. That means Jennifer Jolie appears not only as a “real” person in the Scream universe, but she is presumably also a character in the fictional Stab movies.
After Stab 3, the Stab movies became original stories no longer based on Sidney Prescott’s life. In Scream 4, Jenny Randall (Aimee Teegarden) says that Stab 5 has time travel and is “by far the worst.” If the Stab series has time travel, then there is potentially a Stab timeline where the fictional character of Jennifer Jolie is still alive. This kind of convoluted plot development is actually not unheard of in horror. After all, there are multiple timelines in the Halloween franchise in which Laurie Strode is dead, but in the most recent Halloween movies she is alive.
Also of note is the fact that the new Scream movies have many parallels to the original two Scream movies. As broad examples, Scream (1996) and Scream (2022) both take place in Woodsboro, and they end at Stu Macher’s house after a party. Scream 2 and Scream VI feature a main character going away to college, they both end inside a theater, and the main Ghostface is related to a Ghostface from the previous movie. In keeping with that trend, Scream 7 could run parallel with the production with a new Stab movie, just like how Scream 3 runs parallel with the production of Stab 3.
So here’s the formal pitch to bring back Jennifer Jolie and Parker Posey. After the backlash Stab 8 received from in-universe hardcore fans, the latest Stab movie attempts to cash in on nostalgia by bringing back the best parts of the Stab franchise. Using ideas inspired by Stab 5‘s time travel, Stab 9 (or whatever number) takes a cue from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (specifically, Spider-Man: No Way Home) and opens a rift in the multiverse that allows past characters to enter the main continuity. Jennifer Jolie is among the characters brought back.
Cast in the role of Jennifer Jolie in Stab 9 would, of course, be Parker Posey. We know fictional versions of real-life filmmakers and actors exist within the Scream universe, so why can’t a fictional version of Parker Posey exist there as well? And who would be better to play Jennifer Jolie than Parker Posey? Just think about the Inception-level of detail at play if this happens. The real Parker Posey is playing a fictional version of herself, who is playing a fictional version of a “real” person from the Scream universe, who now only exists in the Stab movies as an actor who plays a fictional version of Gale Weathers.
There are certainly easier ways to bring Parker Posey back to Scream, but this might be the most fun. The absurdity of the Jennifer Jolie character deserves an absurd reason to bring her back. Never forget that Scream isn’t afraid to get silly. As goofy as Scream can be though, it always balances the silliness with compelling characters and great slasher-movie scares and kills. Let the Stab movies be the outlet for the most ridiculous ideas in the Scream franchise, and let it be the conduit for bringing back one of the series’ most entertaining characters, Jennifer Jolie.
