Christopher Landon is opening up about quitting Scream 7 after Melissa Barrera was fired.
The 50-year-old Drop filmmaker was originally signed on to direct the upcoming movie, but dropped out a week after the actress was dropped due to her social media posts.
Though he dropped out “about a week after” she was fired, it wasn’t revealed until a month later when he revealed it online.
In the new book, “Your Favorite Scary Movie: How the Scream Films Rewrote the Rules of Horror,” Christopher opened up about his decision to leave the project.
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“There was no movie anymore. The whole script was about her,” he said, via EW, referring to her character Sam Carpenter. ““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.”
He then addressed wanting to deal with the fallout privately, but went online to speak out after receiving death threats over people thinking he was the one that fired her.
“I was still sorting through my feelings about everything that had happened. When it all went down, it was something I was trying to process in a private and balanced way,” he said. “When you’re a public‑facing person, often people don’t like that. People want an immediate reaction, and they want you to agree with them.”
“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,” Christopher added. “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.”
Just after it was announced that Melissa had been dropped from the movie, it was revealed that her co-star and on-screen sister Jenna Ortega was also revealed to not be returning. She spoke out earlier this year about the real reason she exited the film.
Original Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson stepped in to direct the upcoming movie, which has gone through several changes to the story, and is set to feature quite the star-studded cast.
