Melissa Barrera has landed a key role in Scream 5. The news makes her the first new cast member to join the film after the news broke that David Arquette & Courteney Cox would be returning to reprise their roles from the popular horror franchise. Neve Campbell, who portrayed Sidney Prescott in all four installments of the franchise, told press in May that she was in talks to join the movie. Even though it’s being reported that Barrera has landed a key role in the film, no word on what that role actually entails as of this writing.
Barrera is a rising Mexican actress that recently co-starred in Warner Brothers’ movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical hit In The Heights, directed by Crazy Rich Asians filmmaker Jon M. Chu. That film is due for release next year. The actress and singer plays Lyn in STARZ’s well-received drama series Vida, which just wrapped its third and final season, and this fall she will star as the title character in the movie Carmen, the modern-day reimagining of the classic opera.
Scream 5 is being directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett of the filmmaking group Radio Silence (Ready or Not, V/H/S) from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick. Creator Kevin Williamson and the third member of the Radio Silence trio, Chad Villella, are executive producing. Cameras are due to roll in Wilmington, North Carolina, at the end of the year, and additional casting is underway on the ensemble film as we speak.
The Scream franchise, through four movies that began in 1996, has grossed more than $600 million at the global box office. The late Wes Craven directed all four movies while Williamson wrote the original film as well as Scream 2 and Scream 4. The franchise also spawned a TV series that aired for two seasons on MTV and a third on VH-1.
