Christopher Landon is a director living among some very serious horror fans who love him or hate him.
The ones who love him are fans of his Paranormal Activity movies and offbeat slasher crossovers like Freaky and Happy Death Day. On the opposite end there are the ones who blame him for ruining the Scream franchise during Barrera-gate, when Spyglass allegedly fired its star Melissa Barrera over political statements she made on social media. Her co-star Jenna Ortega left too and Landon followed.
In a recent Vanity Fair article, Landon, promoting his latest thriller, Drop, talked about that terrifying time.
“Scream was a very dark and tumultuous experience,” he says in the interview. “I was gobsmacked and in shock for a while, but I’m at a place now where I can talk about it ’cause I was able to use that unpleasant experience and turn it into something positive. And that was Drop.”
Landon says he was actually a big part of the original Scream movie back in 1995. He read a script by a then unknown Kevin Williamson and immediately knew it was horror gold. Scream 7 was supposed to be a full-circle moment.
But destiny had other plans. Barrera’s exit started a fan mob mentality that blamed the director for her firing. He received very traumatic death threats, some investigated by the FBI.
“I did not fire her,” he told the publication. “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.”
He contends that people don’t know how Hollywood works or “what the hierarchy is, the fans were like, ‘that’s the guy.’ And so they came for me, knives out.”
Despite everything that’s happened Landon still wants (the new) Scream 7 to do well. It’s a franchise he loves even if he can’t be a part of it.
“I want Scream to succeed. Kevin probably made a banger of a movie, because he knows it better than anybody. It’s going to be awesome.”
His new movie Drop opens in theaters on April 11.
*header from Deadline.
