Scream 7 Director Reveals How He Landed the Job, “Always Meant to Be”

Following the tremendous success of 2022’s Scream and this year’s Scream VI, the long-running slasher franchise is all set to continue with Scream 7. Though the two Hollywood strikes are still ongoing, that hasn’t stopped the film’s producers from hiring a director with Happy Death Day and Freaky director Christopher Landon tapped to helm the next movie in the series. Horror fans that found a lot to love about the new Scream movies may have been disappointed to hear that Radio Silence team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett aren’t returning, for Landon however his arrival in the franchise was a long time coming. 

Speaking in a new interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show, Landon, who has dabbled in horror franchises with Paranormal Activity and his own Happy Death Day duo, spoke about how he landed the job of directing Scream 7. When asked about it, Landon confirmed that talks had apparently happened with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, but the pair had elected to move on to other projects (previous reports revealed they’re working on an Escape From New York reboot in addition to their Universal Monsters movie). 

“It came out of the blue for me,” Landon said of the Scream 7 job. “My understanding is that there were conversations happening for some time. But I think it was just an opportunity that really arose because the other directors who did the last two films, Tyler and Matt, they wanted to do something else. They were ready to kind of do something different. That’s when they obviously had to find someone new, and I’ve known Kevin Williamson, who wrote the original film, for a long, long time and he’s a friend. I think he threw my name into the hat and everybody kind of said, ‘Yeah, that makes sense. That seems to make sense.’ And I was just thrilled that I got that call because it felt very, it felt like kismet, it felt like a thing that like was always meant to be.”

Scream 7 director Christopher Landonhas history with series

The Freaky and Happy Death Day director offered a reveal of his history with the Scream franchise as well, revealing in the same interview that he had a small part in getting the original movie made. Landon adds,

“When I was an intern in college my first internship was at a production company, and they knew I was a horror fanatic, a big horror nerd, and so this hot spec script came in and they gave it to me first because they said ‘Oh it’s a horror script you should read this you know? Tell us if it’s any good,’ and I read like the first 15 pages and I freaked out and ran into my boss’ office and I was like ‘This is amazing you guys have to buy it.’ And so everybody started reading it and it was Scream, which at the time was called Scary Movie. They bought it and they made it. So it’s this weird full circle moment to find myself about to direct the next one after I was like weirdly the first person to read it.”

What is Scream 7 about?

As of this writing there has been no indication about what Scream 7‘s plot will be, in fact there’s seemingly not even a script or a story (and won’t be until the Writers’ Strike is concluded). After the events of Scream VI however, there are still several legacy and new characters that are alive and could be Ghostface’s next victim. Melissa Barrera’s Sam Carpenter, Jenna Ortega’s Tara Carpenter, Jasmin Savoy Brown’s Mindy Meeks-Martin, and Mason Gooding’s Chad Meeks-Martin all survived the events of Scream VI with Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby Reed and Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers both making it out alive too. There’s also the Sidney of it all with Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott also still alive (though she did not appear in Scream VI). It was recently confirmed that Campbell will not return for the third season of The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix, which has prompted some fans to wonder if she’ll be making her return to the horror franchise.