Melissa Barrera is re-teaming with Scream directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.
The Radio Silence directing team, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, are reuniting with Scream (2022) and Scream VI star, Melissa Barrera, for a brand new horror film. Abigail lands in theaters this month and follows “a group of would-be criminals who kidnap a 12-year-old ballerina and daughter of a powerful underworld figure. All they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.” Today, Universal Pictures released a new trailer for the highly-anticipated vampire movie.
“From Radio Silence — the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett behind the terrifying modern horror hits Ready or Not, 2022’s Scream, and last year’s Scream VI — comes a brash, blood-thirsty new vision of the vampire flick, written by Stephen Shields (The Hole in the Ground, Zombie Bashers) and Guy Busick (Scream franchise, Ready or Not),” Universal Pictures shared on YouTube. You can check out the new trailer for Abigail below:
Who Stars in Abigail?
In addition to Barrera (Scream franchise, In the Heights), Abigail stars Dan Stevens (Godzilla x Kong: The New EmpireGaslit, Legion), Kathryn Newton (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Lisa Frankenstien), William Catlett (Black Lightning, True Story), Kevin Durand (Resident Evil: Retribution, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and Angus Cloud (Euphoria, North Hollywood) as the kidnappers and Alisha Weir (Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical, Darklands) as Abigail.
The film is produced by William Sherak (Scream franchise, Ready or Not), Paul Neinstein (Scream franchise; executive producer, The Night Agent), and James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, Scream franchise) for Project X Entertainment, by Tripp Vinson (Ready or Not, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), and by Radio Silence’s Chad Vilella (executive producer Ready or Not and Scream franchise). The executive producers are Ron Lynch and Macdara Kelleher.
Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin Address Melissa Barrera’s Scream Firing:
It’s a tumultuous time to be a Scream fan as the seventh installment continues to go in a different direction after Melissa Barrera (Sam Carpenter) was fired from the project. Spyglass has gotten a lot of backlash for the decision, which was reportedly due to Barrera’s support for the Free Palestine movement. Shortly after Barrera’s exit was announced Jenna Ortega (Tara Carpenter) also left the project. Scream 7 continued to go through changes when director Christopher Landon dropped out of the project. Now, the movie is being directed by original Scream writer, Kevin Williamson, and longtime franchise star Neve Cambell is returning after being absent from the sixth installment. Scream (2022) and Scream VI were both directed by Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin who recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about all of the recent drama surrounding the franchise.
“We got exited,” Gillett explained, which Bettinelli-Olpin then repeated with a laugh. “We’ll be sad that there’s not going to be an end to the Sam Carpenter story, but in our minds, we designed Scream VI so that the story feels complete,” Bettinelli-Olpin added.
Bettinelli-Olpin revealed that he and Gillett “reached out to Chris [Landon] and just commiserated a little bit.” Barrera also addressed Landon’s exit from the film, saying, “I actually don’t know what happened. He was very excited about it, and he had great ideas for it, so it makes me sad.”
Abigail is set to land in theaters on April 19th.
