With Jenna Ortega no longer starring in Scream 7, her biggest upcoming 2024 release has its best opportunity to steal a huge horror movie box office record. After starring as Tara Carpenter in the franchise’s reboot movies, Scream (2022) and Scream 6 (2023), Ortega is not returning for Scream 7. The actress’s exit from the 1996-debuting franchise was announced near the firing of her on-screen sister and lead, Melissa Barrera, as well as the departure of director Christopher Landon. While the sequel was once expected to be a box office hit, Ortega has another upcoming horror movie to take its place.
Throughout 2022, with releases like Scream, Studio 666, X, and Wednesday, Jenna Ortega quickly established herself as not only a certified Scream Queen, but also one of Hollywood’s most bankable horror actresses. After smashing viewing records on Netflix with Wednesday, Ortega had a greater presence in 2023’s Scream 6, which earned $169 million at the box office (via Box Office Mojo). While this still came short of Scream’s (1996) $173 million box office haul, it marked an impressive feat for Ortega’s commercial draw. However, another horror movie is now primed to steal her box office record from the franchise without Scream 7’s competition.
Scream 7: Returning Cast & Everything We Know
Scream 7 could push the franchise in wild new directions when Ghostface returns, but whether it’s greenlit is a question that still needs answers.
No Competition From Scream 7 Makes It More Likely For Beetlejuice 2 To Become Jenna Ortega’s Highest-Grossing Horror Movie
Considering Scream (2022) made $138 million before Scream 6 made $169 million, it seemed that Scream 7 was slated to continue this trend by having an even bigger box office return. Since Scream 6 set a record to become Jenna Ortega’s highest-grossing horror movie, Scream 7 thus likely would have taken that record for itself. However, now that Jenna Ortega is no longer part of Scream 7, it’s far more likely that her 2024 movie Beetlejuice 2 will break this record instead to become her biggest horror movie at the box office.
Jenna Ortega Horror Movie | Worldwide Box Office Total |
|---|---|
Scream 6 (2023) | $169 million |
Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) | $161.9 million |
Scream (2022) | $137.7 million |
X (2022) | $14.7 million |
Studio 666 (2022) | $3 million |
Jenna Ortega is starring in Beetlejuice 2, Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel to the classic 1988 horror-comedy Beetlejuice, as the daughter of Winona Ryder’s iconic character, Lydia Deetz. While the original Beetlejuice movie only made $75 million against an estimated budget of $15 million, the upcoming sequel is expected to easily double its earnings given its hype, stellar cast, appeal to multiple generations, and the horror genre’s reliability at the box office in recent years. Additionally, with the actress leaving Scream 7, Beetlejuice 2 is now Jenna Ortega’s biggest horror franchise.
For Beetlejuice 2 to become Ortega’s highest-grossing horror movie, the sequel needs to make at least $170 million. Given Tim Burton’s commercial history, this seems to be a relatively easy feat to accomplish, especially now that it lacks competition from Scream 7 for Ortega fans. Though Burton’s 2019 movie Dumbo was a box office flop due to its $170 million budget, the Disney remake still earned over $353 million worldwide. Boding well for Beetlejuice 2, Burton’s other live-action genre movies over the past decade recorded similar numbers, including 2016’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children earning $296 million.
Beetlejuice 2 Could Become 2024’s Biggest Horror Movie At The Box Office
With 2023’s horror movies seeing plenty of certified box office hits, it’s predicted that 2024’s most anticipated entries will follow suit. In 2023, the highest-grossing horror movies worldwide were Five Nights at Freddy’s ($295 million), The Nun II ($269 million), M3GAN ($180 million), Insidious: The Red Door ($189 million), and Scream 6 ($169 million). The year included several long-awaited and hyped sequels to franchises or adaptations of hit horror games, so their box office returns aren’t surprising. While 2024 also has several highly anticipated horror movies releasing, Beetlejuice 2 only has a few major genre-specific box office rivals to beat.
In 2024, some of the biggest upcoming horror movies so far are Beetlejuice 2, A Quiet Place: Day One, Smile 2, and Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus. With 45 years behind the classic horror franchise, Alien: Romulus may pose the biggest threat to Beetlejuice 2 being the highest-grossing 2024 horror movie. Ridley Scott’s most recent Alien prequels, Prometheus and Covenant, earned $403 million in 2012 and $241 million in 2017, respectively. Meanwhile, the original A Quiet Place movie earned $341 million while the sequel made $297 million, with 2022’s Smile movie recording $217 million.
Jenna Ortega’s Horror Movies Have A Near-Impossible Task To Beat Her Actual Highest-Grossing Movie
Even if Beetlejuice 2 is able to become Jenna Ortega’s highest-grossing horror movie by earning over $170 million, it’s unlikely that the 2024 sequel will come anywhere close to the actress’s biggest box office hit in her wider filmography. Ortega’s film debut was as the Vice President’s daughter in the 2013 MCU sequel Iron Man 3, which made over $1.2 billion at the box office. Considering Ortega’s second-highest-grossing movie is Scream 6, her horror movies still trail Iron Man 3 by over $1 billion at the box office.
It’s rare for horror movies to reach these heights at the box office, with 2017’s It making a remarkable $701 million. Consequently, it’ll take a horror franchise even bigger than Beetlejuice and Scream for Ortega to beat Iron Man 3’s box office total. With Beetlejuice 2 expected to still be a respectable horror hit, as well as potentially more space for additional franchises without Scream 7, Ortega could eventually become the horror star who finally brings a certified horror movie to over $1 billion in box office earnings.
Beetlejuice 2
Beetlejuice 2 is the sequel to the original Tim Burton classic that starred Michael Keaton and Wynona Rider in a horror-comedy that involved ghosts trying to scare off new homebuyers from taking their house. The sequel brings back Michael Keaton as the hilarious and sleazy ghost with selfish intentions, now joined by Jenna Ortega in a new role.
- Release Date
- September 6, 2024
- Director
- Tim Burton
- Cast
- Michael Keaton , Jenna Ortega , Winona Ryder , Monica Bellucci , Willem Dafoe , Justin Theroux , Catherine O’Hara
- Distributor(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures
