Matt Bettinelli-Olpin

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin has evolved from being a punk rocker to a feature film director specializing in consistently and extremely profitable horror and genre films and franchises such as V/H/S and Scream. Bettinelli-Olpin’s first professional profile was as a member of the Bay Area-based punk group, Link 80, fronting on guitar, doing backup vocals, and co-writing lyrics. After leaving the band, Bettinelli-Olpin was a music journalist and then landed a job in the New Line Cinema mail room, where he formed the filmmaking collectives “Chad, Matt & Rob” in 2007 and then “Radio Silence” in 2011.

The first collective, with Chad Villella and Rob Polonsky, made a segment titled “10/31/98” for the feature, V/H/S (2012), with fellow directors Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, and Joe Swanberg, grossing nearly $2 million or over eight times its original cost of $242,000. With co-director Tyler Gillett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin made his directorial feature debut with Devil’s Due (2014), with Allison Miller, Zach Gilford, and Sam Anderson, and earning ($37 million) over five times the budget ($7 million).

The “Radio Silence” collective, with Bettinelli-Olpin, was a sole writer (and also co-star), made the segment, “The Way Out,” for the anthology horror feature, Southbound (2015), with fellow directors Roxanne Benjamin, Bruckner, and Patrick Horvath; the film grossed only $23,665 at the box office. Co-directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett led the hit black comedy-horror movie, Ready or Not (2019), with Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Henry Czerny, and Andie MacDowell, grossing ($57.6 million worldwide) nearly ten times costs ($6 million) for distributor Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Bettinelli-Olpin served as a producer on the fourth installment of the V/H/S anthology franchise, V/H/S/94 (2021), co-directed by Jennifer Reeder, Chloe Okuno, Simon Barrett, Timo Tjahjanto, and Ryan Prows, with the new feature’s strong critical and audience reception confirming a sequel, V/H/S/99, for which Bettinelli-Olpin again served as producer.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin made a major leap forward as a feature film director as co-director (again with Gillett) of his first major studio production, Paramount’s highly anticipated relaunch of the Scream series, with Scream (2022), co-starring Melissa Barrera, Mason Gooding, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, and Neve Campbell, and earning a robust $140 million worldwide gross on a $24 million budget. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett reunited as co-directors for the sequel, Scream VI (2023), with Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding, and Jasmin Savoy Brown.

Bettinelli-Olpin continued his work with the “Radio Silence” trio (including co-director Gillett and producer Villella) as co-director of the horror movie, Abigail (2024), co-starring Alisha Weir in the title role, Dan Stevens, Melissa Barrera, Kathryn Newton, Giancarlo Esposito, and Matthew Goode, and released by Universal Pictures.