“Happy Death Day” director Christopher Landon is opening up about exiting “Scream 7.” The director officially announced his departure from the horror sequel in December 2023, about a month after Melissa Barerra was fired from the movie due to social media posts she put up about Israel and Palestine. Jenna Ortega’s exit from “Scream 7” was announced the day after Barerra’s firing.
“I got messages saying, ‘I’m going to find your kids, and I’m going to kill them because you support child murder,’” Landon said in an interview to Vanity Fair about the death threats he received after Barerra was fired. “The head of security at various studios and the FBI had to examine the threats. It was highly aggressive and really scary.”
Landon said he was originally blamed online for Barerra’s firing since he was the director attached to “Scream 7,” adding: “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.”
“I did not fire her,” the director stressed. “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.”
When Landon announced his exit in December 2023, he wrote on social media that getting “Scream 7” was “a dream job that turned into a nightmare.” He told Vanity Fair the death threats against him are why.
“I decided I didn’t want to give any part of myself to that,” Landon said. “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.” He continued, “In the midst of all the chaos, I was grieving the loss of one of my dream jobs.”
Ortega said at the time of her exit that it was her “shooting schedule” that was preventing her from starring in “Scream 7,” but the actor told The Cut this month she left the film because of the fallout from Barrera’s firing.
“The Melissa stuff was happening, and it was all kind of falling apart,” Ortega said. “If ‘Scream VII’ wasn’t going to be with that team of directors and those people I fell in love with, then it didn’t seem like the right move for me in my career at the time.”
Speaking to Variety on his “Drop” press tour, Landon said that “when I signed on to the project, I was told [Ortega] was out. That was one of the first things they told me, right when I signed on. And I was like, ‘Oh shit, really?’ So that was a bit of a shock to me.”
“And so at that time we were figuring out, how do we make another movie without her? How do we manage that?” he continued. “So that was old news to me from the go. It made a lot of sense what she said, because I do think that sometimes when you’re an actor, it’d be like Jessica Rothe finding out that we’re making a third [“Happy Death Day”], but I’m not directing it. I think we all get very attached to the people that we work with and that we sort of align ourselves with creatively. And when somebody new comes in, it’s like, ‘Who’s this guy?’ So I totally got that, 100%.”
“Scream 7” has moved on with Kevin Williamson, the franchise’s original screenwriter, stepping in to direct. The movie will feature the return of franchise icon Neve Campbell.
