Jenna Ortega might’ve filled theaters for Scream VI, but she is not expected to return for Scream VII, Deadline reports—although perhaps not for the reason you think.
Following Melissa Barrera’s dismissal from the upcoming sequel due to her social media posts about the Israel-Gaza conflict, social media users have called for Ortega to boycott the Spyglass Media project—enough to get Ortega’s name trending on X, formerly known as Twitter. By Wednesday morning, viral tweets had begun circulating claiming that Ortega had requested to leave the project. (Ortega’s publicist did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.)
According to Deadline, Ortega’s absence from the upcoming film “has nothing to do” with Barrera, and “nor does it have to do with the actress asking for an end to her Scream contract.” Instead, Deadline reports, sources say that the parties involved had already discussed the matter before the actors' strike began this summer; the trade attributes her exit from the project to scheduling conflicts with Wednesday and Beetlejuice. Variety has also confirmed that Ortega’s exit stems from a scheduling conflict with Wednesday Season 2.
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Barrera’s posts critiqued both the coverage of the conflict and the war itself; at one point, she likened the situation in Gaza to a concentration camp.
“Cornering everyone together, with no where to go, no electricity no water … People have learnt nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING,” she wrote.
Spyglass Media confirmed the reason for Barrera’s dismissal on Tuesday with a statement: “Spyglass’ stance is unequivocally clear,” a representative told Variety. “We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion, or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”
Meanwhile, Scream VII director Christopher Landon offered a different point of view: “This is my statement 💔 Everything sucks,” he wrote on X Tuesday. “Stop yelling. This was not my decision to make.” He appears to have since deleted the tweet.
