Texas Chainsaw Massacre Sequel Changes Directors, Studio Reshooting Entire Movie

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel is going through major upheaval, just one week into production. Directors Andy and Ryan Tohill have exited the film over “creative differences,” while Legendary Pictures made the surprising move of scrapping the material that the Tohills shot, with the intent of restarting the entire production under new director David Blue Garcia. Garcia made a mark with his feature debut Tejano in 2018, with a handful of other short film credits to go with it. Production on Texas Chainsaw Massacre will be shut down for the week, with no official comment being offered by the studio or those involved with the production.

Deadline reports that the big shake-ups on Texas Chainsaw Massacre came after the director studio couldn’t come to creative agreement about the footage that Andy and Ryan Tohill had shot in the first week. Admittedly the stakes are indeed high for the franchise; this new Texas Chainsaw Massacre film is supposed to be a direct sequel to Tom Hooper’s 1974 original, ignoring later sequels and reboots. After Platinum Dunes failed to spark a revival with the 2002 Texas Chainsaw reboot, the franchise stumbled through a decade of lackluster, and gimmicky installments (The Teaxas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Texas Chainsaw 3D), before nearly coming undone with the 2017 origin film, Leatherface. Despite solid praise from some critics, fans didn’t turn out to see the Leatherface origin flick, which had been plagued by delay, and a general fan rebuke of its “tragic villain origin” concept. Leatherface made less than $1 million at the worldwide box office and seemed to signal that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise was done for good.

Cut to today: You can probably get a better sense of just why Legendary Pictures is being overly cautious with how this new attempt to build a Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise moves forward. Horror fans will no doubt be very curious about what the Tohills shot and what the nature of that film was – almost as much as they will be interested to see what Garcia is bringing to the table.

At the time of the announcement that the Tohills were directing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel, producer Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) seemed convinced they were a perfect choice: “The Tohills’ vision is exactly what the fans want. It’s violent, exciting, and so depraved that it will stay with you forever.”

Makes you wonder what we’re going to get now, no?