Tucker & Dale vs. Evil Director Says TV Spinoff Was Killed Off By David Zaslav

David Zaslav killed off a planned TV spinoff of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil according to the film’s director Eli Craig. Craig co-wrote and directed the 2010 fan-favorite horror comedy, and he recently spoke with SlashFilm for an interview promoting his latest movie Clown in a Cornfield in which he spoke about his attempts to get a fan-demanded follow-up to the comedy off the ground.

Craig noted that a TV show was set up at TNT/TBS and that Zaslav, the head of Warner Bros. Discovery, cancelled production before the show was about to go to series. You can see highlights from the conversation below:

On previous sequel plans not coming to pass: “Honestly, Tucker and Dale 2 has died more deaths than the college kids in Tucker and Dale. We’ve had so many versions that have almost got off its feet or, for one reason or another, have gotten killed. It really does set us back that people can’t look at the box office, the actual box office, of the movie.”

On the TV show being killed off: “It’s always been a struggle, and then when we do set it up, and we get all the pieces together, it gets killed somehow. We almost did a TV show with it that was on TNT/TBS, and you’ll be happy to know that David Zaslav, the slayer of all cinema [laughs], came in and put the final nail in the coffin for Tucker and Dale as we were about to go to series, and just cancelled all production.”

On what the show would have been: The TV show was more like — it’s not going to exist anymore — but it was more like Tucker and Dale, but detectives. Detective Tucker and Dale, like, stupidly trying to figure out what’s happening in a world where they’re always getting it wrong and people are dying around them […] It was Alan and Tyler, and it was…yeah. [Resigned shrug] What can you say?”

On the hope for a new film still being alive: “It’s been through a lot of deaths. There’s a part of me that thinks it could be the first and last movie I ever make. Maybe I’ll be moving along on a walker with Tucker and Dale and we’re like, ‘We’re making this!’ I’ve never completely let go of the idea we’d make a sequel. And part of the reason people want to see a sequel is because it’s set up for it. ‘Tucker and Dale,’ when I wrote it, there were these elements I wanted to follow, like Chad is still alive, Allison and Dale’s story. So I always wanted to do a sequel, but Hollywood is a slayer of great ideas. But stay alive, fans! Because there’s always a possibility.”

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil starred Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine as two hillbilly friends who run across a group of college kids heading into the woods on vacation. The kids start dying in over-the-top accidents, which leads the survivors to accuse the friendly duo as a serial killers. It was a critical darling and while it was barely released in the US, it made $5.5 million worldwide against a $5 million budget and has found new life on the home viewing market.