Skeet Ulrich Says Melissa Barrera’s Exit Ended His Planned Scream Arc
Skeet Ulrich’s return to Scream was built around Sam Carpenter, and with Melissa Barrera no longer part of the franchise, the actor does not see an obvious reason for Billy Loomis to appear again.
Ulrich, who originated the role of Billy in Wes Craven’s 1996 Scream, recently revealed that his appearances in the fifth and sixth films were intended to be part of a larger three-movie arc involving Barrera’s Sam. However, the plan never reached its conclusion after Barrera was removed from Scream 7 in 2023.
Speaking with Us Weekly, Ulrich recently said the filmmakers had discussed a three-film storyline with him when Billy was brought back into the series. Without Barrera’s character at the center of it, however, he believes the purpose behind that return disappeared.
The connection makes sense given how Scream reintroduced Billy more than two decades after his death. The 2022 film revealed that Sam was his daughter, with Ulrich appearing as visions inside her mind rather than suggesting Billy had somehow survived the original movie as a ghost-like entity.
Those appearances continued in Scream VI, where Sam’s complicated feelings about her father became increasingly connected to her own capacity for violence. Billy represented a part of her identity she feared inheriting, while the film gradually complicated whether those instincts could also become a means of protecting herself and the people around her.
The unfinished three-film plan gives Billy’s appearances in the newer Scream movies more context. Rather than simply bringing back one of the franchise’s most recognizable killers for nostalgia, his presence was conceptually designed around Sam’s ongoing struggle with who her father was and what that history meant for her.
That direction changed dramatically before Scream 7. Spyglass Media Group fired Barrera in 2023 following social media posts about Israel and Gaza that the company characterized as antisemitic. At the time, Spyglass said it had “zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form.” Barrera rejected that characterization and has said she would only consider returning to Scream if the rights shifted elsewhere.
Jenna Ortega separately exited the seventh film, with her departure attributed to scheduling conflicts. The project was subsequently overhauled around Neve Campbell’s original final girl Sidney Prescott, shifting the series away from the Carpenter sisters after two movies in which they had served as its central characters.
For Ulrich, that change appears to have closed the door on the version of Billy he returned to play. Because his later appearances existed specifically through Sam’s perspective, continuing without her would require the franchise to create an entirely different reason for a character who has canonically been dead since 1996 to appear.
That does not make another Billy Loomis appearance impossible in a series known for revisiting its history. But Ulrich’s comments make clear that the story he originally agreed to tell had a specific destination, and Scream changed direction before he and Barrera were able to reach it.
