Scream VII director Christopher Landon withdraws from The Hollywood Reporter

Christopher Landon

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Christopher Landon no longer answers The seventh scream communicate. The director has withdrawn from the film, capping a tumultuous few months for the beleaguered project that included the exits of two of its leads.

“I think now is the right time to announce my official exit from Scream 7 weeks ago. This will disappoint some and delight others. It was a dream job, and then it turned into a nightmare. And my heart is broken for everyone involved. Everyone. But it’s time to move on,” Landon said. Written on X Saturday. “I have nothing to add to the conversation except that I hope Wes’s legacy will flourish and rise above the noise of a divided world. What he and Kevin have created is amazing, and I am honored to have even the briefest moment basking in their glow.

On November 21, news broke that Spyglass had fired actress Melissa Barrera from the upcoming seventh round Screaming The film was described in social media posts as anti-Semitic, while news came the next day that her co-star Jenna Ortega would not be returning.

Sources indicate that Barrera’s dismissal actually came in October, in the first weeks of the war between Israel and Hamas, during which the actor became increasingly outspoken. Ortega’s exit, which was her and her cast’s decision, came before the SAG-AFTRA strike this summer but was not announced until last month.

Landon is the horror specialist behind it Happy death day And Horribleand would take over the directing team of Radio Silence, which revitalized the franchise in 2022. Screaming Beside Sixth screamwhich bowed in March and became the highest-grossing domestic grosser for a horror series and the biggest hit since the 1996 original film directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson.

Landon, who was hired before the actors’ strike, expressed his dissatisfaction after Barrera’s dismissal was announced. “Here’s my statement: 💔 Everything sucks. ‘Stop yelling,'” Landon wrote on Tuesday X, before deleting the post. “This was not the decision I made.”

Now future The seventh scream The film’s plot falls to James Vanderbilt, the writer and producer who co-wrote the rebooted films and is writing the current script. Sources say the writer, who was already dealing with the loss of Ortega, was focusing the story on Barrera’s character. When it was abandoned, he at least had a creative partner in Landon to carry the story. Now the franchise is back to scratch and will need to rebuild from the entire cloth.