If there is one thing that can be guaranteed, almost as safe as the sun will get up in the morning, it is that Hollywood will take a series of a successful horror film. Heck, sometimes they will follow the films that did not succeed in the first place just because the horror is so cheerful to produce. (Just look at “Leprechaun” and its many suites.) Unfortunately, this does not always work in this way. If that was the case, we would have a suite of “Tucker and Dale against Evil” now. It turns out that we could I had a sequel, if not for the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav.
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I recently had the chance to speak with director Eli Craig in honor of his excellent new film “Clown in a Cornfield”. During the conversation, we addressed attempts to get a sequel to its classic cult of 2011 “Tucker and Dale” over the years. Although he was developing at different times, he has never completely taken off.
“Honestly, ‘Tucker and Dale 2’ died more deaths than the college students of ‘Tucker and Dale’, joked Craig.” We had so many versions that were almost extinguished or, for one reason or another, we were killed. It really makes us go back that people cannot watch the box office, the box office, from the film. “
For those who may need a refreshment, the original film focuses on a pair of affable Hillbillies called Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) who are on vacation in their dilapidated mountain cabin when confused with murderers by a group of college students. Bloody and funny hijinks ensue. Speaking further, Craig revealed that they were this close To get a suite for cable television before Zaslav takes the plug:
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“It has always been difficult, then when we configure it, and we bring together all the pieces, it is killed in one way or another. We have almost made a television program with her who was on TNT / TBS, and you will be happy to know that David Zaslav, the killer of all the cinema (laughs), came and put the last nail in the coffin to” tucker and in the end ” simply on production. “
Here is what the TV show Tucker and Dale would have
Although we do not have time to review the Curriculum Vitae of Zaslav as a frame, as a head of Warner Bros. Discovery, he has hoisted billions of dollars in cinematographic and television projects in recent years. More famous, he abandoned the film “Batgirl” already filmed for a tax cancellation, and the company did the same for “Scoob! Holiday Haut”. Zaslav tried again with “Coyote against Acme”, only for Ketchup Entertainment to save the film from months later.
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The main thing to understand is that the Zaslav is as brutal as any manager of the company in terms of killing projects, no matter where they are in the process. For what it is worth, Craig officially started to develop a version of “Tucker and Dale VS. Evil 2” in 2014. Finally, this went to a small screen several years later. Craig also told me what the series looks like, and it seems that it would have been very rewarding for the fans of these characters:
“The television show looked more like – it will no longer exist – but it was more like Tucker and Dale, but detectives. The detective Tucker and Dale, like, stupidly trying to understand what is going on in a world where they are still mistaken and people die around them (…) It was Alan and Tyler, and it was … Yeah.
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Indeed, he was going to bring Tudyk and Labine to take their roles in this television version. It also seems to be a great way to extend these characters with a premise adapted to television. This is not like what Syfy and USA Network did with the television program “Chucky”, which turned out to be quite great, according to the general consensus.
Eli Craig wants Tucker and Dale fans to keep hope
As for why Zaslav decided to kill the show? Craig has not entered the details, but these things are still just about dollars and hundred. Cable television is a more difficult business than it has ever been in the streaming era and the cord cut, with a drop in the audience each year. While Warner Bros. Discovery focused on savings of money, they may have considered it an investment that is too risky to justify.
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For the previous point of Craig, “Tucker and Dale” were in no way a hit at the box office, but he took his own life in the last decade and changed on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming. It is a real comedy of a classic cult mirror friend, and box office numbers are not a good representation of the potential audience for a series of this film. However, the director also told fans to keep hope in life:
“It made a lot of deaths. There is a part of me who thinks that it could be the first and the last film I make. I have never dropped the idea that we make a sequel.
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You can hear the full interview on the today’s episode of the Daily / Film Daily:
“Clown in a Cornfield” is now in theaters.