'Scream 7' Completes Collapse As Director Christopher Landon Exits

Landon gets out of the 'nightmare scenario' brought on by Spyglass’s firing of Melissa Barrera and subsequent departure of Jenna Ortega

It’s time to Ghostface the music with this killer blow. Director Christopher Landon has announced on Twitter he left Scream VII “weeks ago”, in the fallout of Spyglass’s firing of lead Melissa Barrera, which broke on November 21, for condemning genocide in the Israel-Hamas war.

His two-tweet announcement read “I guess now is as good a time as any to announce I formally exited Scream 7 weeks ago. This will disappoint some and delight others. It was a dream job that turned into a nightmare. And my heart did break for everyone involved. Everyone. But it’s time to move on. I have nothing more to add to the conversation other than I hope Wes’ legacy thrives and lifts above the din of a divided world. What he and Kevin created is something amazing and I was honored to have even the briefest moment basking in their glow.”

Landon came in for the directing team known as Radio Silence who had directed the two highly successful installments that revitalized the franchise. The two most recent films starring Barrera and the departed Jenna Ortega came after two decade+ long breaks before and after 2011’s Scream 4, so much that March’s sixth installment became the franchise’s highest-grossing film domestically and biggest hit overall since Wes Craven’s 1996 original. Landon had a horror background coming from having directed Happy Death Day and Freaky.

Reportedly, Barrera was fired in October, closer to the earliest stages of Israel’s genocidal retaliation against the Palestinian people following Hamas’s October 7 incursion that triggered this new Israel-Hamas war. Barrera blatantly and openly condemned the genocide of the Palestinians, but Spyglass execs chose to characterize it as anti-Semitic in justifying her firing. When the firing came down, he was seemingly caught in early crossfire probably because in all the hubbub who did the firing was blanketed to more parties than the actual perpetrators, as he wrote “This is my statement: 💔 Everything sucks. Stop yelling. This was not my decision to make.” Ortega’s exit wasn’t made public until after Barrera was fired, but it was allegedly decided before the July start of the SAG-AFTRA strike, by her and her representation. Scheduling conflicts or something.

Even without the two leads or the director, or any remaining goodwill from the audience toward Spyglass, Scream VII may be collapsed but it’s technically not dead. Writer-producer James Vanderbilt, who co-wrote the two movies of this era, has returned to write this film, and is still tasked with it. With Ortega’s departure as Tara Carpenter already squared away, more emphasis was placed on Barrera’s Sam. Without her, and now Landon’s departure ensures it’s a creative reset, but progress remains to be seen. Barrera’s next film is the horror romantic comedy Your Monster, premiering at Sundance Film Festival next month, while Ortega stars with Martin Freeman in Miller’s Girl which releases on January 26, and in the long awaited sequel Beetlejuice 2, which will be released on September 6.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter