Again, Arden Cho seems okay with not being in the panned Teen Wolf: The Movie

Arden Cho has “no regrets” when it comes to turning down her role in Teen Wolf: The Movie, due to the unequal pay she received when cast in the original series.

“Thanks for your support,” she shares on Twitter, without specifically naming the new film. “Looking forward to better in 2023! Don’t be scared to walk away or turn down an opportunity if you know it’s not fair and it won’t make you happy! You deserve better. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!”

Cho appeared on the original series run as the kitsune Kira Yukimura, holding a regular series role starting in season three through season five, before being unceremoniously cut from the show ahead of its sixth season.

When it came time to announce the cast for Teen Wolf: The Movie, Cho revealed she chose not to reprise her role after learning of the disparity in pay between her and her white counterparts. During her time on the Teen Wolf series, Cho says she was offered less than half the salary of her co-stars, despite her role as a major love interest and integral storytelling component (she was also the only person of color on the show’s cast at the time).

“I wasn’t saying ‘no’ necessarily for me or because I was angry. I was saying ‘no’ because I hope that there will be more equality in the future,” she told The Cut in May 2022.

And why should she have regrets? The follow-up film from Jeff Davis has been largely critically panned and written off as a weak addition to the series’ already convoluted lore.

In our review of Teen Wolf: The Movie, Ray Greene writes:

“Add in about a dozen major characters with intense backstories the movie doesn’t even try to explain and you have a recipe for something other than clarity; to call Teen Wolf: The Movie’s storyline tangled is to insult knotted hair. After six seasons of borrowed elements from Norse, British, Irish, Japanese, Native American, and Eastern European folklore, Teen Wolf has become a premise not just clogged by surplus mythos but constipated with it. If the Druid cultists won’t get you, the ghostly ninja fighters will.”

In the long run, she’s probably better off, especially if she was going to get paid less than her fellow co-stars. The Paramount+ production recruited original series cast members Tyler Posey, Crystal Reed, Holland Roden, Colton Haynes, and Shelley Hennig.