Gale Weathers (Scream Franchise)

Gale Weathers (formerly Gale Riley) is a main character and tritagonist (later deuteragonist) in the Scream film franchise (1996—present). She is the only main character to appear in all six films.

In the original film, she claims and later proves Cotton Weary's innocence and wrongful row conviction of and in Maureen Prescott's 1995 trial. Alongside Maureen's daughter Sidney, she has solved and survived the events of all five Ghostface killing sprees, inspired by the original massacre created by Maureen's true killer, Billy Loomis.

The former opportunistic reporter is the ex-wife of the late, former Sheriff Dewey Riley, and close confidante to Sidney, with whom she develops a trust and bond throughout the films. Introduced as a Top Story journalist from New York City, she survives the original Woodsboro Massacre in 1996, where she meets her future ex-husband, enduring an on-off 25-year-spanning romance, which ends in his . Gale avenges her ex's by setting his killer on fire.

As an author, Gale has written at least seven books based on Sidney Prescott's life, five real-life events based, beginning with Wrongly Accused (1996). Her best-seller The Woodsboro Murders (1997 book) is adapted into a slasher movie called Stab in 1998, and is followed by true-events based crime novels, College Terror (1998 book), Hollywood Horror (2000 book), and the fictional books, Ghostface Returns (2007 novel) and Knife of the Hunter (2009 novel) (all seen in Scream 4). She also most likely published a yet-unknown titled book based on the Woodsboro Remake (events of Scream 4).

Gale finally opts to quit tabloid media and stories about Ghostface forever, so that the killers die in anonymity. She suggests writing a biography about a "brave man who used to be the sheriff" in the town once, referencing Dewey. However, this decision is short lived as she proceeds to write a book, Requel: Terror Returns To Woodsboro, based on the Third Woodsboro Murders, causing conflict between her and Samantha and Tara Carpenter.

Gale takes a more prominent role in Scream VI, having reverted to her old ways of backstabbing survivors and writing factually incorrect books. Gale discovers a shrine dedicated to Ghostface and reforms herself when she helps the 2022 survivors escape a new Ghostface killer. In the film, Gale gets her first ever Ghostface call (ever since, unbeknownst to her, her original attempted first phone call intended for her being taken from her by her former ally and fourth victim of the copycat killing spree, Randy Meeks; thus inadvertently causing her survival) which results in a chase between her and Ghostface which ends with Gale being sent to the hospital on the verge of . Her fate is left unknown until Danny Brackett confirms that she survived the attack and is resting in the hospital.

Gale is portrayed by Courteney Cox.