Credit: ParamountFew franchise departures in recent Hollywood history have generated as much sustained conversation as the exit of Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega from the Scream series. When Scream (2022) introduced the Carpenter sisters — Sam and Tara — as the new emotional and narrative center of the franchise, it felt like a genuinely exciting handoff. The film was sharp, funny, and horrifying in all the right ways, and Scream VI deepened the mythology around Sam’s heritage as Billy Loomis’s daughter in ways that seemed to be building toward something significant. Fans left both films with a clear and exciting question: would Sam Carpenter ultimately become the killer?
That question was supposed to be answered in Scream 7. It never got the chance. Scream 7 opened in theaters on February 27, 2026, without either Barrera or Ortega, returned Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott in a story set years after the original films, earned a franchise-record $64 million opening weekend domestically, and was met with reviews that ranged from lukewarm to genuinely disappointed. And as the film made its way through theaters, the story of what it was supposed to be became almost as compelling as the film itself — because what directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin had planned for Sam and Tara Carpenter would have been a very different kind of Scream movie.
Reports indicate that Tara Carpenter was planned to die early in Scream 7, potentially in the opening scene, with her death serving as the emotional rupture that would finally push Sam past her resistance to her own dark impulses and set the trilogy’s final chapter in motion. It is the kind of bold, emotionally devastating choice that the Scream franchise has used effectively since Scream 2 opened with the deaths of Phil Stevens and Maureen Evans, and it would have fundamentally changed what audiences understood the third film to be about.
Movie.Takes (@Takes2Movie) took to X to share, “Acting star Jenna Ortega who plays (Tara Carpenter) in ‘SCREAM 5’ and ‘SCREAM VI’, reports show that her character would have been killed off early into the film, or opening scene of ‘SCREAM 7’.
• Original plan was to be a trilogy where Tara’s death would crush the hold that kept Sam from acting on sinister, “Billy Loomis-like” impulses, from the previous two films. 🔪🩸”
Acting star Jenna Ortega who plays (Tara Carpenter) in ‘SCREAM 5’ and ‘SCREAM VI’, reports show that her character would have been killed off early into the film, or opening scene of ‘SCREAM 7’.
• Original plan was to be a trilogy where Tara’s death would crush the hold that… pic.twitter.com/lm0B5T8sVY
— Movie.Takes (@Takes2Movie) March 3, 2026
Why Barrera and Ortega Left the Film
The behind-the-scenes story of Scream 7 is one of the more complicated franchise histories of recent years, and understanding it requires separating two distinct departure stories that are often conflated.
Melissa Barrera was fired from Scream 7 in November 2023 following social media posts she made about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Spyglass Media issued a statement at the time: “Spyglass’ stance is unequivocally clear: We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form.” Barrera responded with her own statement: “First and foremost I condemn Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” adding that she would “continue to advocate for peace and safety, for human rights and freedom. Silence is not an option for me.”
Jenna Ortega’s departure followed, and the official explanation at the time was scheduling conflicts with filming Wednesday. In April 2025, Ortega gave a fuller account to The Cut, connecting her decision directly to what was happening around the production. “It had nothing to do with pay or scheduling,” she said. “The Melissa stuff was happening, and it was all kind of falling apart. If Scream VII 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.”
That directorial team — Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin, who made both Scream (2022) and Scream VI — also departed the project. Christopher Landon, director of Happy Death Day and Drop, was announced as their replacement, then he too left in December 2023. In an April 2025 interview with Vanity Fair, Landon revealed that he had received death threats from fans who incorrectly believed he had been responsible for Barrera’s firing. The Scream 7 that eventually reached theaters was directed under entirely different creative leadership than the one that had been in development.
What the Original Film Was Planned to Be
The clearest window into the original Scream 7 came from Skeet Ulrich in a December 2025 interview with Entertainment Weekly. Ulrich, who played Billy Loomis in the original Scream and appeared in de-aged flashback sequences in the 2022 film and Scream VI, explained the arc he had understood from the beginning: “When we talked about coming back for 5, it was a three-picture arc for Billy Loomis to slowly turn his daughter into the killer. Obviously, those things didn’t pan out, given certain things that happened.”
The implication is significant. Sam Carpenter, introduced in Scream (2022) as someone actively fighting against the dark impulses she feared were inherited from her serial killer father, was intended to become Ghostface in the third film. The de-aged Billy Loomis sequences that some critics found tonally awkward now read differently in this context — they were not affectionate franchise fan service but rather breadcrumbs in a three-film transformation arc.
Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin spoke about their vision in a February 2026 interview with EW. Bettinelli-Olpin described the intended tone as bleak, saying the film was “going to f— you up.” Gillett elaborated that they were thinking about making it “ultra-contained, almost continuous, like minute-to-minute.” That description suggests something closer to the directors’ work on Abigail — a single-location, high-pressure pressure cooker — rather than the broader franchise ensemble approach of their two Scream entries.
As for Tara specifically, a report from Cinemablend citing the YouTube channel Beyond the Mask indicated that her character would have died early in Scream 7, possibly in the opening sequence. If accurate, her death would have been the emotional catalyst that finally broke Sam’s resistance and pushed her into becoming what her father always was. The franchise’s signature opening-scene kill has historically served to establish both tone and stakes — the death of Tara Carpenter, the person Sam had spent two films fighting to protect, would have done exactly that in the most devastating way possible.
What Jenna Ortega Has Been Working On
Credit: ‘Scream 7’: Courteney Cox Reunites With ‘Friends’ Co-Star for Slasher Sequel
Even without Scream 7, Jenna Ortega has remained one of the most in-demand performers working in Hollywood. Her role as Wednesday Addams in Wednesday on Netflix established her as a genuine star well beyond the horror genre, with the series drawing massive viewership numbers and earning her significant awards attention. The second season of Wednesday has been a priority in her schedule and a central factor in the public-facing explanation for her departure from the Scream franchise.
Beyond Wednesday, Ortega appeared in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024), Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel, as Astrid, the teenage daughter of Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz. The film was a major commercial success and demonstrated Ortega’s comfort in elevated genre material that operates on a different register than Scream. She has continued to develop her profile as a performer with range across horror, dark comedy, and character-driven drama, and her public statements about the Scream 7 situation — candid, thoughtful, and clearly personally significant — added a dimension to her public persona that went beyond any individual project.
What Scream 7 Became and Whether It Works
The Scream 7 that opened on February 27, 2026 stars Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, now living in Pine Grove, Indiana with her husband Mark Evans, played by Joel McHale, and their three children including a teenage daughter named Tatum, played by Isabel May. It is a film that centers the franchise’s original final girl rather than the characters who were positioned to inherit it, and the critical response has reflected the difficult position that puts the film in.
MovieWeb‘s Eric Goldman called it “reheated horror-movie comfort food,” a description that has circulated widely because it captures something specific about the film’s creative posture. It is not bad in the ways that horror sequels are often bad — it is competent, familiar, and built on an emotional foundation that Campbell sells convincingly. But knowing what it was supposed to be, and understanding how close the franchise came to a genuinely bold creative gamble in having Sam Carpenter revealed as the killer, makes the delivered product feel like a step back even when it works on its own terms.
The $64 million opening weekend — surpassing Scream VI‘s $44 million — demonstrates that audience appetite for the franchise remains strong regardless of creative upheaval. Whether the film’s post-opening performance sustains that interest, and what Paramount does with the franchise from here given both the financial success and the critical reception, remains to be seen. What is clear is that the Scream series said goodbye to its most interesting unresolved narrative thread, and the story of why that happened is more compelling than the film it produced.