‘There was no movie anymore’: Why Scream 7’s director left franchise after Melissa Barrera’s firing

Scream VII’s former director has opened up on exiting the franchise after Melissa Barrera (Paramount Pictures)

Christopher Landon, the director originally attached to helm Scream 7, has opened up about his decision to exit the franchise ‘about a week’ after Melissa Barrera was fired.

Though the iconic slasher franchise Scream welcomed new blood in the form of Melissa Barrera and Wednesday‘s Jenna Ortega to 2022’s soft reboot and its sequel Scream VI, much like many of Ghostface’s victims, they didn’t last long.

Despite the pair’s Sam and Tara Carpenter becoming fan favourites alongside fellow newbies Jasmin Savoy Brown (Yellowjackets) and Mason Gooding, with the return of original franchise star Courteney Cox for Scream VI, both Barrera and Ortega exited the franchise during pre-production for planned threequel Scream VII.

Barrera was reportedly fired from the franchise due to her support for Palestine amid the ongoing Israel/ Hamas conflict, an experience she called “lonely and scar[y],” and Ortega dropped out of the project shortly after.

Christopher Landon, who was attached to the as-yet-officially-untitled Scream 7 in 2023, left after Barrera, saying the project had turned from a “dream to a nightmare”.

Speaking in interview for Ashley Cullins’ new book Your Favorite Scary Movie: How the Scream Films Rewrote the Rules of Horror, Landon has now shared exactly what exactly happened.

“I made my decision to walk away about a week after [Spyglasss] fired her,” he said. “There was no movie anymore. The whole script was about her. I didn’t sign on to make ‘a Scream movie.’ I signed on to make that movie. When that movie no longer existed, I moved on.”

Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera in Scream VI (Paramount Pictures)
Landon also clarified that social media began to paint him as “some sort of villain” after Barrera’s exit.

“They were all screaming at someone who wasn’t even on the movie anymore. There were a lot of people who thought I was some sort of villain. That really got in my head. It was painful, and it was painful to lose a dream job in such a sudden and bizarre way,” Landon said.

Though Ortega initially attributed her departure to scheduling conflicts, she later shared that her exit was because of Barrera and Landon’s departures.

For Scream VII, Kevin Williamson (director of the very first Scream in 1996) will return at the helm, along with David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, and Scott Foley as (the very dead) Dewey Riley, Stu Macher and Roman Bridger, respectively.

Original franchise star Neve Campbell will also return for Scream 7 after being absent from the previous film over a dispute in pay.

Savoy Brown and Gooding will return, with newcomers Isabel May, Anna Camp, Celeste O’Connor, Asa Germann, Mckenna Grace and Sam Rechner.

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