Introduction
Over the past couple of days fans of the ‘Scream’ franchise have been anxiously looking at news articles in horror and anticipation with what is going to become of this fan-favourite, popular slasher franchise. Not only has the franchise fired its main star from the past two films, but another major star has walked due this- leaving the future of the franchise in jeopardy. But what’s happened? What is the studio doing to try and fix this? And what will this mean for the future of the franchise?
What’s Happened?
Melissa Barrera has played the role of Sam Carpenter in the last two instalments of the ‘Scream’ franchise, taking on the new lead role and place of the new ‘final girl’. However, two days ago, Barrera made some Instagram posts which criticised Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza. These posts led to the actress getting immediately fired from the next instalment of the Scream Franchise.
Following this news, actress Jenna Ortega (known for Wednesday and the upcoming film Beetlejuice 2) who played Tara Carpenter, the sister of Sam in the last two instalments of the franchise has reportedly quit the franchise all together.
This means that ‘Scream 7’ has lost its two main actresses, and all the hard work put in to establish the groundwork and story for these two characters has been a complete waste of time.
It has been reported that the studio is now doing some damage control and attempting to get Neve Campbell and Patrick Dempsey back onto the project as original final girl, Sidney Prescott, and her husband Mark Kinkade. However, after Campbell chose not to return to the sixth film because the studio refused to give her a fair wage, it seems unlikely that Neve Campbell will return to the franchise at all.
What does this mean for the Franchise?
There appears to be four main ways ‘Scream 7’ can go ahead without Sam and Tara, although it seems unlikely that fans will be happy with any of these possibilities.
The first option is that the film will just focus on the legacy characters and have Sidney Prescott back as the final girl, fighting with Mark, Gale, and Kirby. They would just need a way to explain the absence of the ‘core four’ characters that were centre stage for the last two films.
Another option is for the film to recast the carpenter sisters. This would be a huge mistake and no Scream fan would go along with this- but with Hollywood and how they have handled losing actors in other films, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if they just decided to recast the characters so they can finish the story arc.
The third option is that they find a group of new protagonists to follow in this film, and just introduce a group of new characters, with Gale and Kirby there to help them fight against Ghostface. Again, this would just feel like making a new film for the sake of it- there would be no importance behind it, and no reason for fans to go and watch this film as the audience have already lost faith in the creative team for losing the two actors.
The final option (which I feel would be the best moving forward) would be to do what they did with the Halloween franchise and act like the fifth and sixth films haven’t happened and just re-make the fifth film. This means that Dewey would still be alive and then Sidney, Gale and Dewey can fight Ghostface together (with the help of Kirby) like the good old days.
Or of course they could just not make a seventh ‘Scream’ film. However, there are already reports of the script being re-written and especially with the financial success of the sixth film, it seems very unlikely that they would just shelve the seventh ‘Scream’ film, especially since it has already been greenlit.
What do you think will happen in Scream 7? Let us know in the comments below.
