Years after her breakout role in Scream (2022), Melissa Barrera’s survival thriller is gaining prominence. Barrera starred as Sam Carpenter in Scream and Scream VI (2023), alongside Jenna Ortega’s Tara Carpenter. She was eventually fired from the franchise after posting her opinions about the Israel-Gaza conflict on social media.
The next Scream movie has not yet been released, as Ortega left alongside Barrera, which led to considerable delays. Scream 7 is now expected to be released on February 27, 2026, and will see Neve Campbell reprising her role as Sidney Prescott, alongside Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers), Joel McHale (Mark Evans), and other stars.
While Barrera was set to lead the Scream franchise for the foreseeable future, her firing meant that she was forced to turn her attention to other horror-related releases. The actor starred in Abigail (2024) and Your Monster (2024), and she is expected to appear in the upcoming espionage show The Copenhagen Test.
Melissa Barrera’s Keep Breathing Is Surging
Barrera has been struggling to find work since her firing, but one of her pre-existing releases is now surging on Netflix’s charts. In 2022, Barrera starred in the survival-thriller Keep Breathing, a six-episode miniseries that saw Barrera as an attorney desperately trying to survive in a forest after a devastating plane crash.
The show failed to draw much attention in its initial release, and Netflix elected to let the show remain a miniseries, despite ongoing speculation about Keep Breathing season 2. Unfortunately, the show failed to thrill critics, earning a disappointing 53% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes and a dismal 38% score on the audience-led Popcornmeter.
Keep Breathing was originally envisioned as a limited series.
While it received an underwhelming reception initially, Keep Breathing is now becoming increasingly prominent. The show earned the #10 spot on Netflix’s charts on August 15, which is surprising when it comes three years after the show’s release. It sat behind #9 Saare Jahan Se Accha: The Silent Guardians, #8 Dan Da Dan, and the ever-present #1, Wednesday.
What This Means For Keep Breathing
Unfortunately, shortly after Keep Breathing found a spot on Netflix’s charts, it was pushed back out. On August 16, it was replaced by Perfect Match, and there is no way to know if the show will reclaim its place on the charts. Its resurgence was unexpected, however, so it could very well happen again with little prompting.
If so, Netflix could reconsider the show and potentially permit another season. While Keep Breathing‘s ending was definitive, the series could easily evolve into an anthology show, depicting different leading characters in survival situations. For now, however, Netflix will need to see if it will be able to continue its rise to prominence.
Keep Breathing
- Release Date
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2022 – 2022-00-00
- Directors
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Maggie Kiley, Rebecca Rodriguez
- Writers
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Martin Gero, Brendan Gall
