Matthew Lillard explains why he's "very excited and slightly terrified" to return for Scream 7: "I hope I don't F it up"

Matthew Lillard says he's both excited and terrified to return to the Scream franchise for the first time since his starring role in 1996.

"I will say, I can’t say anything about it, obviously. But I am very excited and slightly terrified to be back because all I can do is really screw up a legacy that we have. I could really suck, and so that’s my fear," Lillard told the crowd at 90s Con (via People).

Lillard, a pop culture icon for the last 30-plus years, starred as Stu Macher in Wes Craven's Scream, the teen slasher that changed the horror genre (and pop culture as a whole) forever. Stu was the original Ghostface alongside Skeet Ulrich's Billy Loomis. While it was implied that his character was killed in the first film...it was never actually confirmed.

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If we're getting logistical here, having a TV fall on you from a relatively low height isn't enough to kill you...but we're not scientists. Anyway, it makes sense for Stu Macher to come out of hiding after all these years to torture Sidney Prescott again – and we're here for it.

Continued Lillard: "My fear is that I come back and sort of punish something that I could never have touched and been just fine. I hope I don’t f it up for everyone."

Scream 7 hits theaters on February 27, 2026. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2025 and beyond, or, skip ahead to our complete list of movie release dates.