Joel McHale Says Patrick Dempsey’s Name Was On His ‘Scream’ Set Chair

As some familiar faces went up against Ghostface in Scream 7, one character underwent a recasting after 25 years.

Joel McHale, who made his debut as Sidney’s (Neve Campbell) husband Mark Evans in the latest in the slasher franchise, noted that production on the sequel was preparing for Patrick Dempsey to take over his role as Mark Kincaid from Scream 3 (2000).

“Patrick Dempsey played the husband in the last one, and he was supposed to play this one,” he explained on the Inside of You podcast. “And I don’t know how it went down. I don’t know if it was schedule or money, I don’t know. Patrick, please forgive me if I’m fucking this up.”

McHale added, “But I get there, and his nameplate is on my chair—I tried to keep it. They wouldn’t let me.”

Last January, McHale was cast as police officer Mark Evans, husband of Campbell’s Sidney Prescott in the Kevin Williamson-directed sequel.

After Sidney mentioned her husband Mark and their daughters in Scream 5 (2022), many assumed she had married Dempsey’s Detective Mark Kincaid, with whom she shared chemistry in the Wes Craven-helmed third installment.

Dempsey previously said in 2024 that he was in talks to return, “waiting on the script” for the seventh slasher movie. “There has been a conversation about it. I haven’t seen anything yet. So, we’ll see what happens,” he said at the time, shortly before signing on to lead Fox’s Memory of a Killer.