A still from ‘Scream 6’.
| Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures/YouTube
The seventh film of the Scream franchise is in a creative conundrum after losing two of its stars this week. Spyglass, the film’s producer, fired Melissa Barrera, over her social media messages that the company that it deemed to be antisemitic (posts regarding the Israel-Hamas war).
A day after the development, Jenna Ortega dropped out of the film. Losing two main leads who were instrumental in reinventing the dying franchise now puts the film’s future in limbo. Ortega dropped out due to a scheduling conflict with the second season of the Netflix show Wednesday. Barrera and Ortega play sisters in the franchise. As of now, Christopher Landon remains on board as the director.
James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, the writers of the previous two Scream films, are set to work on a fresh draft. Scream 7 is now in need of new protagonists. The franchise has a host of characters still alive or those who could be reanimated. One of them is Neve Campbell, who appeared in 2022’s Scream but opted out of the following installment owing to a salary dispute. Another actor in fray is Courteney Cox.
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The production house Spyglass is yet to comment on the issue. The makers had planned to release the seventh part in 2025.