AFTER bringing the Scream franchise back to life as the lead star in 2022’s Scream and its sequel, actress Melissa Barrera has been unfairly fired from the upcoming Scream VII.
Her recent social media posts on the Israel-Palestine conflict are the reason for the firing.
“Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp,” Barrera wrote in one post from a series of Instagram stories.
“Cornering everyone together, with nowhere to go, no electricity and no water. People have learned nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. This is genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
Spyglass Media Group, the owner of the Scream franchise, is now expected to recalibrate the seventh film’s plans.
Brought back in 2022, the film series’ fifth instalment, which was led by Barrera, earned US$137 million (RM639 million) globally.
The film brought back older characters and merged different generations to pave a new way for the franchise, with Barrera’s Sam and Jenna Ortega’s Tera Carpenter being the sisters at the forefront.
In last year’s Scream VI, the duo helped the film top US$168.9 million (RM788 million) at the global box office.
Barrera’s firing is the second mishap Hollywood has taken last week. A day before that, prolific actress Susan Sarandon was dropped by talent agency UTA after she made comments at a pro-Palestinian rally in New York on Nov 17.