Jenna Ortega says she left Scream 7 because the project was falling apart. Matthew Lillard is in the film and doesn’t want to mess it up

Spyglass Media and Paramount Pictures once intended to make a Scream 7 that would have starred Scream (2022) and Scream VI leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. We heard that Ortega exited the project after asking for a substantial pay raise – and as we saw when Neve Campbell dropped out of Scream VI due to a pay dispute, these pay issues don’t tend to work out. Then Barrera was fired from the project after comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war didn’t go over well with executives at Spyglass. But now Ortega has given an interview where she denied that a pay dispute had anything to do with her exit.

Speaking to The Cut, Ortega said she dropped out of Scream 7 because of the Melissa Barrera situation, and because the directors of Scream (2022) and Scream VI (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) were not coming back. Here’s the quote: “It had nothing to do with pay or scheduling. The Melissa stuff was happening, and it was all kind of falling apart. If Scream 7 wasn’t going to be with that team of directors and those people I fell in love with, then it didn’t seem like the right move for me in my career at the time.“

So Scream 7 has been re-developed, Campbell has signed on to return as franchise heroine Sidney Prescott, back in the lead role, while Kevin Williamson, who wrote the screenplay for the original Scream, directs the film from a screenplay by 2022’s Scream and Scream VI writer Guy Busick, who crafted the story with his co-writer on the fifth and sixth films, James Vanderbilt. (Vanderbilt is also a producer on the most recent sequels.) 

Neve Campbell is joined in the cast by Isabel May of the Yellowstone prequel 1883, who has signed on to play Sidney’s daughter; Mckenna Grace of the Ghostbusters franchise, Grace’s Ghostbusters co-star Celeste O’Connor, Gen V‘s Asa Germann, The Fabelmans‘ Sam Rechner, Pitch Perfect‘s Anna Camp, fellow franchise star Courteney Cox, who reprises the role of reporter / author Gale Weathers, Joel McHale (Community) as Sidney’s husband Mark Evans, Ethan Embry (The Devil’s Candy), Michelle Randolph (Landman), Jimmy Tatro (American Vandal), and Mark Consuelos (Riverdale). Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown are back as Chad Meeks-Martin and Mindy Meeks-Martin from Scream (2022) and Scream VI. There are multiple deceased characters in the cast as well. Matthew Lillard and Scott Foley, who played Ghostface killers who were killed off in Scream (1996) and Scream 3, respectively, and David Arquette, whose beloved character Dewey lost his life in Scream (2022), are all back for this sequel.

People has reported that Lillard is worried about messing the movie up with his appearance. He said, “I can’t say anything about it, obviously. But I am very excited and slightly terrified to be back because all I can do is really screw up a legacy that we have. I could really suck, and so that’s my fear. My fear is that I come back and sort of punish something that I could never have touched and been just fine. I hope I don’t F it up for everyone.“

What do you think of what Jenna Ortega had to say about her Scream 7 exit – and what Matthew Lillard had to say about his involvement with the film? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Scream 7 is set to reach theatres on February 27, 2026.