Jenna Ortega says big franchises haven’t really come calling, and she’s fine with that
Jenna Ortega has cooled the Marvel chatter with a left‑field plan for life after Wednesday — and it’s not what you’re expecting.
If you were expecting Jenna Ortega to jump straight from Wednesday into the nearest blockbuster franchise, think again. She's got other plans, and she laid them out in that rather candid way of hers during a recent podcast chat.
Jenna turned up on the Happy Sad Confused podcast on 22 October, primarily to plug her latest film (Klara and the Sun with Taika Waititi, if you've lost track of her recent projects). But, inevitably, talk turned to Hollywood mega-franchises. Marvel, DC, Star Wars—the whole lot. And rather than play coy, Jenna spelled it out:
Ortega told host Josh Horowitz: "I actually haven't had a lot of franchise really conversations... What I'm meant to do will come and find me."
In other words, she's not been spending her free time fielding offers from every spandex-clad superhero series in Hollywood. No cryptic teases about secret auditions, either—she simply hasn’t had many of those chats. As for her career philosophy, she reckons the right roles will seek her out when she’s ready. Fair enough.
No More TV (For Now)
Jenna also gave a pretty clear update about her post-Wednesday future. After the Netflix series wraps up (and that’s not all that far off, actually), she’s planning to step away from television. She jokes she’s done years of TV already—kiddie shows, then straight into the big leagues, so she’s well overdue for a breather and wants proper space for new opportunities.
On her next steps, Ortega added: "I think after Wednesday, I'll probably be off the TV for a while… I was bouncing from show to show as a kid just to this and I want to leave time for new things."
It's not her first time stepping back. She bowed out of the Scream franchise after two instalments—a sensible move, given how those films tend to treat legacy characters. And earlier this year, she mentioned she’d nearly quit acting entirely before landing her breakout role on You, so this isn’t sudden or out of character for her.
The Wednesday Timeline
Season 3 wrapped filming in September 2026, and the plan is for Netflix to drop it in 2027. They’re not exactly light on star power—Winona Ryder and Eva Green are joining the cast, in case the ensemble needed more goth credibility. Jenna’s role as Wednesday Addams already bagged her an Emmy nomination, and the series itself has clocked up four Emmys since launching back in 2022.
Season 3 of Wednesday finished shooting in September 2026 and is expected to land on Netflix in 2027.
Meanwhile, Jenna isn’t short on film gigs. She’s in Klara and the Sun with Amy Adams, and she’s got more on her slate—Nasty with Rose Byrne, plus The Great Beyond alongside Glenn Powell and J.J. Abrams producing somewhere in the background. No sign of her suiting up as a superhero just yet, but you never say never in this business.