allegations

Chloë Grace Moretz Says New Film Has “Completely Distanced” Itself from Max Landis

“We’ve rewritten it several times now,” the actress says of the horror movie Shadow in the Cloud, which Landis originally wrote. “His name is kind of far away from the project.”

By Laura Bradley

April 19, 2019

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Months after boarding the upcoming World War II horror film Shadow in the Cloud, Chloë Grace Moretz says the film is backing away from screenwriter Max Landis. Moretz’s casting was announced in January, with Roseanne Liang attached to direct. Sexual assault accusations against Landis first surfaced in 2017. Given that, Moretz recently told The Guardian, “[W]e’ve completely distanced ourselves from him. We’ve rewritten it several times now. His name is kind of far away from the project.”

Landis was accused in 2017 of sexual assault by multiple women on Twitter, but the allegations never coalesced into a reported story; one Pajiba writer reached out to various parties regarding rumors about Landis’s alleged behavior, but found no one ready to speak publicly. “I heard claims that they knew other women who were allegedly assaulted by Landis,” wrote Pajiba’s Tori Preston at the time. “I heard about behavior ranging from alleged public groping to (alleged) true horror stories, and even though they were off the record, the stories shared a lot of similarities. But the women in question often weren’t ready to talk to me directly — and they certainly weren’t ready to share their pain with the internet masses.” Landis did not respond to the allegations back then, although he did delete his Twitter account.

In Shadow in the Cloud, Moretz will play a pilot who, per The Hollywood Reporter, “puts up with jeers from the leery, all-male crew, strange happenings begin to occur and they realize that something is lurking within the shadows. Crushed between an oncoming Japanese ambush and an evil prowling within, Maude must push her limits to save the hapless crew and to protect her mysterious cargo.”

This is the second project Moretz has worked on that’s been mired in #MeToo allegations. She also starred in Louis C.K.’s I Love You, Daddy, which was never released due to the comedian’s admission to sexual misconduct. Months after the accusations against C.K. surfaced, Moretz said in an interview that she did not think the film should ever be released. “I think it should just kind of go away, honestly,” she said last August. “I don’t think it’s time for them to have a voice right now . . . Of course, it’s devastating to put time into a project and have it disappear. But at the same time, this movement is so powerful and so progressive that I’m just happy to be in communication with everyone and to see the big change in the face of the industry, which I think is very, very real.”

Speaking about Shadow in the Cloud and the allegations against Landis, Moretz told The Guardian, “Communication is key and being held accountable is key. It’s a really horrific thing to hear those stories.”

A representative for Landis did not immediately respond to V.F.’s request for comment.