Jenna Ortega’s commitments to the TV show Wednesday mean she’s the second person this week to depart the Scream franchise.
Commercially at least, 2023 has been a banner year for the Scream franchise. No matter what you thought of Scream VI, that landed at the start of the year, it certainly brought in the cash. A $44m opening weekend marked a highpoint for the series, and it didn’t take long for Spyglass Media and Paramount Pictures to crack on with the idea of Scream 7.
A slight change of personnel was originally announced, with the directorial debut Radio Silence – who helmed the last two films – moving on to other projects. In their place came Christopher Landon, he of Happy Death Day and Freaky fame. A fine replacement.
But if all was going swimmingly where Scream 7 was concerned, it’s all been a bit upended this year.
Yesterday, one of the stars of the last two Scream films – Melissa Barrera – was apparently fired from the next movie. Now we learn that the actor who played her sister in the last two films – Jenna Ortega – is also not returning for Scream 7, per Deadline.
Slightly different reasons this time, though. Ortega is committed to shooting the second season of the TV show Wednesday, which had been held up due to the actor’s strike. With the end of the strike, the Wednesday team is getting back up and running, and it’s with them that Ortega needs to be.
Which leaves gaps at the top of the Scream 7 call sheet all of a sudden. Whether the characters of Sam and Tara Carpenter were in the plans of Christopher Landon is unknown, but we’d assume there’s no recasting that’s going to take place, and instead the narrative of the film will go elsewhere.
The script for Scream 7 hadn’t been locked anyway, according to Deadline. And just as we were about to publish the story came the news that a ‘creative reset’ for the film has been put forward, with the writers by the sounds of it going back to square one.
More on the film as we hear it…
