- Former Scream 7 filmmaker Christopher Landon says he and his family received death threats amid Melissa Barrera’s firing from the sequel
- “The head of security at various studios and the FBI had to examine the threats. It was highly aggressive and really scary,” Landon told Vanity Fair
- Landon abandoned directing Scream 7 in December 2023 and instead made Drop
Christopher Landon is opening up about his brief tenure as the director of the upcoming seventh Scream movie — and how the fallout of Melissa Barrera‘s firing from the film led him to quit the project altogether.
Brandon, whose new thriller Drop releases in theaters Friday, April 11, told Vanity Fair in a Tuesday, April 8 article that he had “a very dark and tumultuous experience” as the director of Scream 7 for some four months in 2023, before Barrera, 34, was fired from the movie and costar Jenna Ortega decided not to reprise her role.
“People were threatening to kill me and my family, to the point where the FBI was getting involved,” Landon said of the situation. Spyglass Media, the company that makes the Scream movies, fired Barrera over social media she made posts related to the Israel-Hamas war. “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,” he added.
Philippe Bosse / Paramount Pictures / Everett Collection
Coincidentally, Landon was an intern at the production company that purchased Scream creator Kevin Williamson’s original 1995 script that grew into the Neve Campbell-led meta-slasher franchise. Landon was brought on to direct Scream 7 in August 2023, which he said “felt like such a full circle moment” for his career until Barrera’s exit. Ortega, 22, dropped out of the movie soon afterward, after she and Barrera had been positioned as the franchise’s new leads.
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Without Barrera’s involvement, Landon’s plans for Scream 7 “all came tumbling down in an instant,” he told Vanity Fair. “It was devastating to suddenly cancel everything.”
Landon himself announced his departure from the project in December 2023. He told the outlet that Spyglass Media wanted him “to continue on” as the movie’s director, but he decided “it was not worth” the abuse he unfairly faced online.
Amy Sussman/Getty
“In the midst of all the chaos, I was grieving the loss of one of my dream jobs,” Landon said. He also said in the Vanity Fair piece that he had no role in firing Barrera from the movie. “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.”
Scream 7 is moving ahead with Williamson, 60, as its writer and director. Campbell, 51, is returning to the movie after stepping out for 2023’s Scream VI. Landon’s comments on his experience with the franchise come after Ortega recently told The Cut that Scream 7 simply “didn’t seem like the right move for me in my career at the time” after Barrera’s firing.
In a statement shared with PEOPLE when Barrera’s firing was announced, a spokesperson for Spyglass said, “Spyglass’ stance is unequivocally clear: We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”
Landon’s new movie Drop, which stars Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar, is in theaters Friday, April 11.
