Following Melissa Barrera being fired for Scream 7, Jenna Ortega is officially not returning to the meta-slasher franchise. While the news may seem like the two incidents are connected, reportedly, the reasons are entirely separate. Shooting season 2 of Wednesday is the reason, as the schedule would get in the way of another Ghostface encounter.
Melissa Barrera Being Fired Reportedly Unrelated to Jenna Ortega Exiting Scream 7
Deadline was the first to confirm that Jenna Ortega will not reprise her role as Tara Carpenter, the sister of Melissa Barrera’s Sam Carpenter, in Scream 7. The studio insisted that it had discussions with the star before the SAG-AFTRA strike. Also, due to the strike, the schedule for the Addams Family series was pushed, so season 2 production would begin in April and through the summer in Ireland.
The news is eyebrow-raising due to the timing. Yesterday, the firing of the lead of the last two Scream entries surprised fans. She was let go from the project for posting on social media about the genocide taking place in Palestine from Israel. One specific post that made Spyglass pull the trigger was a piece she shared from Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University. The studio considered her posts to be an “incitement of hate” and anti-Semitic.
Neither of the stars have posted about or responded to the current news about their respective exits.
Not much is known about the next film as the script is still in development. It will be directed by Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day). His only response to the situation was from a now-deleted post on X, formerly Twitter, in which he wrote, “💔 Everything sucks. Stop yelling. This was not my decision to make.”
