On November 21, 2023, Melissa Barrera was quietly dropped from Scream VII due to comments about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, showing support for Palestine, which Spyglass Media Group took as "anti-semitic". The decision to drop her received extreme backlash, with people threatening to boycott the movie. Melissa Barrera received a waive of support from many online, including Scream fans, and Jenna Ortega (privately).
The original director of Scream VII, Christopher Landon, wrote in a deleted post on X, "Everything sucks. Stop yelling. This was not my decision to make." This post also received backlash.
On November 22, 2023, it was announced that Jenna Ortega would not be returning to Scream VII, which officials cite as due to her schedule, but others believe it was due to her co-star being fired.
It was announced recently this year in 2024 that Scream 7 will not address the events of Scream 5 (2022) and Scream 6 (2023) and would be a time-jumped movie with this being a sequel to Scream 4 and that this would be the main focus once again on Sidney Prescott (played by Neve Campbell).
