Scream 7: How Jenna Ortega & Melissa Barrera’s Exit Changed the Movie

Scream 7 director Kevin Williamson detailed in a new interview how the departure of Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera altered the project. Ortega played Tara Carpenter in 2022’s Scream and 2023’s Scream VI. Meanwhile, Barrera portrayed Tara’s older sister, Samantha, or Sam, in those movies. Although they were both attached to Scream 7 at one point, that is no longer the case now.

Kevin Williamson says he didn’t want to direct Scream 7 after Jenna Ortega’s exit

Kevin Williamson spoke at length about how Ortega and Barrera’s exit brought about significant changes to the plot and focus of Scream 7 during an interview with Screen Rant. “It was sort of, ‘Well, what’s going to happen?’ After we lost Melissa and Jenna, and it just looked like we weren’t going to see the Carpenter sisters in a third movie, it was kind of a bummer,” he said. “It’s like, ‘What do we do next?'”

According to Williamson, they ultimately settled on not only bringing Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott back but also focusing on the “story of who she is today.”

After the screenplay was ready, Williamson and his collaborators approached Campbell. She read the script and heard the pitch before signing on to do the movie. Williamson, who wrote the screenplays for the first, second, and fourth Scream movies, further revealed that Campbell convinced him to helm Scream 7. “And then Neve called me one day and said, ‘I think you should direct this.'” Williamson recalled, “And I went, ‘No, no, no, no, no… okay, I’ll do it.'”

Notably, Barrera reportedly was fired from Scream 7 due to her posts on social media about the Israel-Hamas War (via The Hollywood Reporter). As for Ortega, after speculations and conflicting reports, the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice actor clarified that she left not due to a pay dispute or scheduling conflict but because the project was “kind of falling apart.” She particularly underscored what happened to Barrera and the exit of co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who previously directed Scream VI (via The Cut).

Scream 7 premieres in US theaters on February 27, 2026.

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