Ex-“Scream 7” Director Talks Threats

Out promoting his new thriller “Drop,” filmmaker Christopher Landon has opened up about his brief time with the “Scream” franchise and why he left before he got properly started.

In August 2023, the “Happy Death Day” and “Freaky” director was announced as taking over the seventh “Scream” movie – stepping in to replace the Radio Silence team who handled the fifth and sixth ones after they exited to work on another project.

Then in November, Melissa Barrera was fired from the film for tweets supporting Palestine in the Israel-Hamas war, with co-star Jenna Ortega leaving shortly after. Ortega spoke about the real reasons she left the other day.

By end of December, Landon himself walked from the project with producers Spyglass Media Group effectively retooling the project and turning it into something a reunion of the original creative team like actress Neve Campbell and writer Kevin Williamson.

Speaking with Vanity Fair this week, Landon confirmed he received a bunch of the blame for Barrera’s firing, even as he made it clear then and now it was not his decision to cut ties with Barrera:

“I got messages saying, ‘I’m going to find your kids, and I’m going to kill them because you support child murder. The head of security at various studios and the FBI had to examine the threats. It was highly aggressive and really scary.

I did not fire her. A lot of people think I had something to do with it, and it was not my doing. I had no control of the situation at all. I think in the absence of people understanding how Hollywood works and what the hierarchy is, the fans were like, ‘that’s the guy.’ And so they came for me, knives out.”

The sheer amount of abuse he received, which he previously said turned his “dream job” into a “nightmare,” is what led to him exiting as he felt it was not worth it:

“I decided I didn’t want to give any part of myself to that. For me, it was not worth it. I would rather put my efforts into something else, where I could feel appreciated and respected. The hate and abuse really spoiled it for me, and I lost my love for the idea of going forward. In the midst of all the chaos, I was grieving the loss of one of my dream jobs. I went through all the stages – I was shocked, I was sad, and then I got angry. To be a part of this legacy, it was really hard to let it go.”

Landon adds that he has “no resentment at all” towards the franchise itself and says Williamson, who took over as director, will “probably made a banger of a movie, because he knows it better than anybody.”

Landon’s “Drop” meanwhile is pulling in excellent reviews with a 87% (6.9/10) on Rotten Tomatoes.

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