Usually when a movie begins filming, the director has been locked in for a while already and will stick around to see the project through to completion. However, in a move pulled from the Solo: A Star Wars Story playbook, the latest Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel has lost its directors after just one week into principal photography in Bulgaria.
Back in February, it was announced that The Dig’s Ryan and Andy Tohill had been hired to direct the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, but now the duo have exited the sequel due to creative differences. This decision was reportedly made in the last 48 hours, with Deadline reporting that Legendary Pictures, the production company behind this latest installment, “didn’t spark to what it saw.”
As a result, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel has shut down, but it won’t stay that way for long. David Blue Garcia, an Emmy-winning cinematographer who made his feature filmmaking debut with 2018’s Tejano, has been tapped as Ryan and Andy Tohill’s replacement. Garcia will also shoot the project from scratch rather than incorporate any footage that the Tohills captured.
As mentioned earlier, this is reminiscent of what Solo: A Star Wars Story went through several years, back, with original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller exiting in the middle of production, and Ron Howard coming in to fill their shoes. In that instance though, Lord and Miller made it through approximately three-fourths of the main Solo shoot before they were fired, whereas Ryan and Andy Tohill were only around for a week on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel. Evidently that was enough time for Legendary to decide it wasn’t enamored with what the duo was delivering.
Just like 2013’s Texas Chainsaw 3D, the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie will serve as as a direct sequel to only the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was released in 1974. In other words, this will be an alternate tale exploring the return of the killer known as Leatherface after being absent for decades. The Halloween franchise followed that same kind of model in 2018, and that was successful enough to spawn two direct sequels.
Along with David Blue Garcia now on board as the new director and Chris Thomas Devlin having written the script, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel boasts a cast that includes Eighth Grade’s Elsie Fisher, Happy Death Day 2U’s Sarah Yarkin, The Maze Runner’s Jacob Latimore and Vikings’ Moe Dunford. No plot details have been officially revealed yet for the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, but The Illuminerdi reported in May that it follows two sisters who venture into the namesake state for a business trip and have the misfortune of running into the elderly madman out in the rural country.
Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates on how the next chapter of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise is coming along, and you can browse through our 2020 release schedule to discover what movies are supposed to arrive later this year.
