Scream 6 star Melissa Barrera has revealed where the new film stands on the Scream franchise timeline. Barrera, who had her breakout role in the 2018 Starz drama Vida before going on to roles in In the Heights and Keep Breathing, was the star of 2022's Scream, the fourth sequel to the 1996 meta-slasher classic Scream. She plays Sam Carpenter, a young woman who returns to her hometown of Woodsboro when her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) is attacked by Ghostface, bringing her into the orbit of previous survivors Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), and Dewey Riley (David Arquette).
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Scream was a box office success, so an as-yet-untitled sequel was greenlit shortly afterward. Scream 6, which has already wrapped production, is due in theaters on March 31, 2023. The film will follow the surviving characters to New York City, where they will be surrounded by a new cast of victims and potential suspects played by Dermot Mulroney, Henry Czerny, Samara Weaving, Tony Revolori, Jack Champion, Devyn Nekoda, Liana Liberato, and Josh Segarra. In addition to Coz, Barrera, and Ortega, Jasmine Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding will return as twins Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin alongside Hayden Panettiere reprising her fan-favorite Scream 4 character Kirby Reed.
Today, Deadline released a 20 Questions interview with Barrera on their Deadline Podcast, hosted by Antonia Blyth. During the conversation, she was asked at what point Scream 6 picks up after the events of Scream. The actress revealed that the film takes place more or less directly after the previous film with no significant time jump and that the year in between the release of the two films is "the amount of time that has passed in Scream time." Read her full quote below:
No, it’s not [a big time hop] at all. It’s almost directly after the last one. Basically, the amount of time that has passed between one movie and the other is the amount of time that has passed in Scream time.
What Scream 6's Timeline Reveals About the Horror Sequel
Despite being released just barely over a year after the previous entry, Scream 6 is actually not the quickest turnaround for a Scream sequel. That distinction belongs to 1997's Scream 2, which came out 357 days after the original Scream. However, that film featured a time jump of two years, putting Woodsboro survivors Sidney and Randy at college age. This means that Scream 6 features the shortest chronological gap between movies, as Scream 3 (2000), Scream 4 (2011), and Scream (2022), all of which featured time jumps similar to the time in between entries.
The year in between films will allow time for certain characters to transplant themselves from California to New York City. However, it will also give the characters of Scream 6 the freshest trauma to contend with when another Ghostface killer presumably arrives on the scene. This could potentially allow them to further the meta humor about "elevated horror" that began with the previous film, as many films in that genre deal with the trauma of their main characters.