What’s your favorite scary movie? Well, in another timeline, it might’ve been Scream 7, if different directors were at the helm of the project. That’s not to say that the latest Ghostface killings haven’t met a warm welcome. Regardless of its poor critical reception, the new chapter has earned the franchise’s best debut to date (via Deadline). However, it does make you wonder if it could’ve done any better with Radio Silence, aka Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, before they parted ways with the movie.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the directing duo hinted at just what kind of plans they had in mind for those who were once again caught up in the carnage and claret-covered horror movie references. "We never read a draft of any version of Scream 7 that we were going to do because we had left to do Abigail before that,” explains Bettinelli-Olpin. ”The thing that we had in our minds for Scream 7 was sort of like, 'How hard can we go with this?' It was the thing that we talked a lot about. For us, it was always this idea of, [if] Scream VI is like a secret feel-good movie, Scream 7's going to fuck you up. That was as much as we ever got to.”
"Given that we expanded the sort of scope of the story by going to New York, the other thing that we had talked about — just Matt and I, by the way, it wasn't a conversation with the writers — was, 'How do you do the opposite for 7?’” recalled Gillet. “Like, shrink it down and make it this like ultra-contained, almost continuous, like minute-to-minute thing. But outside of our own stupid idea, we weren't privy to any plan beyond just, 'There's gonna be another one.’"
Unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan, and due to scheduling conflicts, Radio Silence had to give up the Ghostface in place of their equally fun (and excessively bloody) horror Abigail. The good news, of course, is that it reunited them with former Scream star Melissa Barrera, who has since parted ways with the Scream franchise after she was fired for her social media posts in support of Palestine. It wasn’t long before Ortega followed. From there, director Christopher Landon, who had taken over from Radio Silence, also jumped ship, leaving Kevin Williamson to have a stab at things.
As for the directing double act that brought the franchise back from the grave, they're set to continue their own with Ready or Not 2, which is set for release in theaters on March 20. For any other horror movie worth checking out this year, take a peek at our guide here, preferably from behind a cushion.
