“It had nothing to do with pay or scheduling,” Ortega says in a new interview with The Cut, published today. Aside from the firing of Barrera, the reboot’s directors, Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, were also not returning. “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.”
This is hardly shocking. For one thing, Ortega is a rising star, and quite likely the most in-demand actor of the rebooted Scream cast. It’s hard to believe that no one could find the money to keep her around, especially since the film found the money to bring Neve Campbell back after Ortega had already left. Beyond that, refusing to pay Campbell what she felt she was owed for the sixth installment in favor of orienting it around Barrera’s character Sam Carpenter, only to fire her months later, is a mess that Ortega is wise not to associate herself with.
It sounds like Ortega is growing increasingly wary of associating herself with any franchise. Of course, she diplomatically comments that she’s thankful for the opportunities of Wednesday and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, “But for me, I’m really trying to prioritize new directors and original stories.” As she tells The Cut, this is what led her to Death Of A Unicorn, the latest rich person satire from A24. “I know on the outside, maybe people are looking at my choices like, Man, what the hell is this girl doing? I never thought I would do a movie with unicorns,” she says. “But an original script is exciting. If I can help get it made, I love to do that.”
