Although original director Christopher Landon’s version of Scream 7 will never see the light of day, the upcoming 2025 psychological thriller Drop looks like a fun consolation prize for the helmer’s fans. Scream 7 arrives in 2026, but the sequel’s messy production process already risks overshadowing its actual story. When the slasher sequel was first announced, Scream 7 was set to continue the story of Melissa Barrera’s Sam and Jenna Ortega’s Tara, two sisters who were the main characters of Scream 2022 and Scream VI.

However, Scream 7 dropped Sam and Tara’s story when Barrera was fired from the project over social media posts and Ortega exited shortly after. Christopher Landon, the director of the quirky slasher comedies Happy Death Day and Freaky, exited the sequel after Ortega. Months later, Landon was replaced by Scream’s screenwriter Kevin Williamson, and original series star Neve Campbell’s return was announced. Whether Neve Campbell’s comeback can save Scream 7’s story or not, Landon’s vision for the movie is now gone for good.

Drop Is A High-Concept Horror Movie By Scream 7’s Original Director

Happy Death Day’s Christopher Landon Helms The Psychological Thriller

Fortunately, 2025’s Drop looks like a fun consolation prize for anyone who wants to see Christopher Landon’s Scream 7 and an enjoyable high-concept psychological thriller for everyone else. Drop sees Meghann Fahy’s heroine Violet trapped in an impossible bind when the widowed single mother goes on her first date in years. At first, Violet is relieved and delighted to find out that her date is charismatic, funny, and good-looking. However, things take a turn for the nightmarish when Violet starts to receive some strange airdrops.

These airdrops quickly escalate from messages telling her that she is in for a terrifying ride to messages that tell her to check on her security cameras. Soon, her unseen ᴀssailant is warning her not to show these messages to her date before dropping a bombshell. The unknown messenger sends her an airdrop telling her to kill her date, or her son and his babysitter, Violet’s sister, will be killed. If this setup sounds as familiar as it is scary, that might be because it’s a high-concept riff on Scream’s iconic opening scene.

Drop Borrows The Scream Franchise’s Most Iconic Scene

The Upcoming 2025 Horror Movie Is An Extended Take On Scream’s Opening

Like Drop, Scream opens with a likable heroine being tortured over the phone by an unseen killer who threatens the lives of her loved ones unless she partakes in a twisted game. Of course, Drop changes the premise a little. Instead of talking on a landline phone, the villain of Drop uses the more anonymous, contemporary method of airdropping their creepy threats. Moreover, instead of lasting for 15 nerve-wracking minutes, here, the scene of the killer toying with the heroine over her phone takes up the entire runtime of the movie.

Drop effectively turns Scream’s iconic opening scene into an entire movie, meaning Landon has more time to explore the premise and toy with his heroine. While all the Scream movies revisited the original movie’s opening call in one way or another, none of them tried this sort of audacious real-time storytelling gambit. It is impossible to know what Landon’s abandoned Scream 7 would have looked like, but the premise of Drop proves that the director can take elements from the iconic slasher series and re-purpose them in a way that feels fresh, original, and innovative.

Drop Can Make Up For Christopher Landon’s Lost Scream 7

Landon Exited The Troubled Sequel After Stars Melissa Barrera And Jenna Ortega

Although both Happy Death Day and Freaky already proved Landon was good at self-aware slashers, Drop will effectively be Landon’s Scream 7 alternative after he left the sequel in late 2023. Landon also penned 2025’s Heart Eyes, another slasher pastiche that riffs on the same movies that were satirized in the Scream series. As Scream 7’s story becomes clearer, it is increasingly obvious that the sequel will return to prioritizing Sidney’s story and not the Sam and Tara plot that Landon’s unfinished take on Scream 7 intended to complete.

With this in mind, Drop will be a fun diversion since viewers won’t get to see Landon’s take on the Scream series. Drop’s high concept is ingenious, and its blend of real-time home invasion horror with a lone-location thriller set entirely in an upscale restaurant sounds fun, clever, and scary. The Scream franchise’s loss is proving to be horror’s gain as Landon continues to write and direct projects like Heart Eyes and Drop, both of which play with slasher conventions while paying homage to the genre’s history. While Drop is not quite the same as seeing Landon’s Scream 7, this clever riff on the opening scene of Wes Craven’s classic slasher should be an inventive, original horror movie nonetheless.