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Director says he left 'Scream 7' due to death threats
ghostface running in a theater in scream vi Paramount Pictures

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the Scream franchise. I frequently turn the first three movies on for a little “comfort watch” while I do chores or work. Yes, I hated the Billy Ghost in the past two films and had some issues with both movies. But I don’t think Scream (2022) and Scream VI are bad movies. I liked them enough to be excited about Scream 7, but now I’m not feeling so sure about this one. This film just might be cursed, y’all. The latest not-great news comes from the former director of Scream 7, Christopher Landon, who revealed that he left the film after getting death threats. 

As we all know by now, the trajectory of Scream 7 went south after Spyglass Media Group fired its star Melissa Barrera for her pro-Palestine comments on social media. That rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way and it set off a chain of unfortunate events for those left behind. Shortly after Barrera’s exit, Christopher Landon took to social media to tell fans to stop harassing him because her firing was not his decision. However, the post got a swift deletion and Landon left the project soon afterwards. Now, in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, he’s opening up about how his dream job turned into a nightmare. 

“People were threatening to kill me and my family, to the point where the FBI was getting involved,” he shared. “I got messages saying, ‘I’m going to find your kids, and I’m going to kill them because you support child murder.'”

He continued, “The head of security at various studios and the FBI had to examine the threats. It was highly aggressive and really scary.” It is truly a shame that he had to endure such cruel treatment over something that wasn’t his fault. Fans not loving Melissa’s firing is one thing but threatening to harm Landon and his family is horrific.

Recently, Jenna Ortega said that she left because things were crumbling following Barrera’s firing. She also wanted to work with Radio Silence, the creative team behind the last two films. So yeah, this film had a lot of mess swirling around it. Combine that with the weirdness of bringing back more dead characters, some of whom were former Ghostfaces, and I just don’t know what to think. I love Sidney Prescott down but girl, it’s messy over there.

This article first appeared on Nerdist and was syndicated with permission.

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