Jenna Ortega’s star has long since elevated beyond the Scream series—she has Wednesday season two coming up, co-starred in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and is in current A24 release Death of a Unicorn, to name more credits on her ever-growing resume. But her exit from the popular slasher franchise came at such a fraught moment, not longer after co-star Melissa Barrera was fired for social media posts in support of Palestine, made people wonder exactly what happened behind the scenes.
At the time, there was speculation that Ortega’s Wednesday filming schedule created a conflict with the prospective Scream 7, though it was understood there’d be a longer delay between parts six and seven than there’d been between five (which released January 2022) and six (March 2023). The directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett had handed the reins over to Christopher Landon, who ended up departing the project himself after Ortega left.
OG Scream head Kevin Williamson come aboard last year—Scream 7 should finally hit theaters in February 2026—and has been busily adding former Ghostfaces and other past characters into the cast. Though Ortega’s character survived Scream VI, and despite the changing of the guard with Williamson directing, the star isn’t coming back. In a new interview with the Cut, she addressed her departure, offering a few more details.
“It had nothing to do with pay or scheduling,” Ortega said, debunking the earlier Wednesday scheduling conflicts story. It had more to do with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett moving on from the next Scream entry—and the Barrera controversy.
“The Melissa stuff was happening, and it was all kind of falling apart. If Scream VII wasn’t going to be with that team of directors and those people I fell in love with, then it didn’t seem like the right move for me in my career at the time.”
The Cut article underlines just how busy Ortega is even without any more Scream on her plate, with her Netflix series returning and turns in feature films, including Hurry Up Tomorrow with the Weeknd, Taika Waititi’s Klara and the Sun, and Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist. Read more of the interview here.
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