Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon is taking over Scream VII

A major shake-up in the world of the Scream movie franchise today, as THR reports that Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon has stepped in to direct the upcoming Scream 7, taking over for directing team Radio Silence, which helmed the last two movies in the series. Radio Silence (which, for the purposes of the Scream franchise, is co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who also helmed the excellent Ready Or Not) will still serve as executive producers on the new film. (As will fellow RS member Chad Villella.)

As for Landon, he’s spent the last few years carving out a niche for himself by putting inventive, comedy-heavy genre spins on classic slasher movie setups; in addition to the two Happy Death Day movies (which merged Friday The 13th and Groundhog Day, to surprisingly funny results), Landon was also the director of Freaky, about a final girl type who finds herself body-swapped with the violent killer stalking her and her friends. To be honest, he feels like a pretty natural fit for Scream, which has always had playing with the format of the slasher flick canon as a core part of its DNA.

Landon comes into a franchise that has largely been re-shaped in the Radio Silence image in recent years, as the team re-booted the movies (defunct in theaters since 2011) with last year’s Scream, before building on that success with this year’s Scream VI. Although Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett did run into a few rough patches with their efforts—most notably a high-profile conflict with series star Neve Campbell, who walked away from appearing in the sixth movie due to pay disputes—their work has been genuinely well-received, and is seen as that rare instance of a long-running horror franchise falling into the hands of fans who genuinely love it. Radio Silence reportedly moved to an EP role on the latest film because they’re working on an original horror property over at Universal.

No word on when Scream VII might land in theaters.