The firing of Melissa Barrera from Scream 7 sent shockwaves through the Scream fandom back in 2023, with comments made by the actress on her own personal social media platforms being cited as the reason why production company Spyglass decided to pull the plug on their original trilogy plans and cut ties with the actress who had starred in the previous two movies.
Variety explains the situation in a new report, “In late 2023, as Israeli bombs decimated Gaza in retribution for the Oct. 7 attacks, actress Melissa Barrera took stock of the carnage and spoke out. The Scream and In the Heights star posted daily messages to her Instagram calling for peace, criticizing the Israeli government’s killing of Palestinian civilians, and comparing Gaza to a concentration camp. She posted fundraising links to Palestinian human rights organizations and shared articles by Holocaust scholars accusing Israel of committing genocide.”
The end result? Barrera was removed from Scream 7 and pushed out of her talent agency, firmly dividing the Scream fandom. The decision was ultimately made to instead bring back Neve Campbell and pivot the franchise storyline back to Sidney Prescott, with both Barrera and on-screen sister Jenna Ortega absent from the final iteration of Scream 7.
In an explosive new interview with Variety, Melissa Barrera holds nothing back in explaining exactly how she feels about Spyglass and the “nostalgia-bait” reconfiguration of Scream 7.
Barrera even questions whether or not Scream 7‘s box office numbers are legit. According to all official box office reporting, Scream 7 scared up $207 million at the worldwide box office this year, making it the highest grossing single installment in the franchise to date.
“Let’s be real: the seventh one sucked,” Variety’s interviewer says to the actress at one point. Barrera responds, “I know. And I think they lied about the numbers. I don’t think it made that much money. But at the stage door, I sign Scream things every night. People who love me from those movies are coming to see the show, and they can’t ever take that away from me.”
“The only way they were able to make that movie after what happened was to nostalgia-bait as much as possible,” Barrera continues, painting an accurate picture of what Scream 7 ended up becoming in the wake of Barrera’s firing and Ortega exiting the project.
“Spyglass brought back cast members from the prior Scream films. Did that seem scabby to you? Did it feel like those were people basically crossing the picket line?” Variety asks. Barrera responds, “Oh, one hundred percent. I think they all are. And they have to live with that.”
“When you’re doing something that feels like it’s the right thing to do, and then you’re punished for it, it really fucks with your head,” Barrera notes during the chat.
She also says in response to a previous question earlier in the interview with Variety, “The reality is that Scream is always going to be a big part of me because it was two years of my life, it gave me a lot, and I’m grateful specifically to Matt [Bettinelli-Olpin] and Tyler [Gillett] who gave me that shot. That hasn’t been soured for me. They don’t have that power.”
You can read the full interview over on Variety for more from Melissa Barrera.
