Horror maven David Blue Garcia (Netflix and Legendary’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, indie thriller Tejano) is directing Mucho Mas Media’s upcoming horror-thriller, Zeus, it was announced today. Blue Garcia directs from a script written by Tate Hanyok (The Pet-Nup) and Shane McKenzie (Prime Video’s Bingo Hell). Highland Film Group is handling worldwide rights to the horror-thriller and launching sales at the American Film Market.
Zeus is a creature feature that will introduce a new killer monster into the canon of terrifying predators including Jaws, Cujo, and even Michael Myers! The story follows a group of friends in their early 20s being terrorized by a Cane Corso during a lakeside holiday celebration.
Produced by Mucho Mas Media’s Javier Chapa (The Black Demon, The Long Game, Rosario starring Emeraude Toubia and David Dastmalchian), Phillip Braun (Rosario, The Long Game) executive produces Zeus alongside Robert Muñoz, Morgan Cano-Long, Simon Wise, Vincent Cordero, Bruce Barshop, and Arianne Fraser and Delphine Perrier for Highland Film Group.
The film is being fast-tracked for production and will be financed by HarbourView Equity Partners led by Sherrese Clarke Soares (Netflix’s The Long Game), who is also an executive producer.
“The horror genre continues to thrive, ushering in a new era of exciting films,” said producer Javier Chapa. “We couldn’t imagine a better filmmaker than David Blue Garcia to bring Zeus to life—a character destined to become an iconic figure in the world of horror.”
“With the undeniable talent of genre aficionado David Blue Garcia at the helm, we cannot wait to unleash Zeus and introduce the carnivorous canine to horror fans around the world,” said Highland Film Group CEO Arianne Fraser. “It’s great to be teaming up again with Mucho Mas’ Javier Chapa and Phillip Braun following the success of our maiden creature collaboration, The Black Demon,” added Highland COO Delphine Perrier.
David Blue Garcia is an Emmy award-winning Director / DP who was born and raised on the South Texas border. He caught the filmmaking bug at a young age when he discovered the family VHS camera and began directing his little brother in homemade action movies. He attended film school at the University of Texas (’06) and remained in Austin to cut his teeth in the independent film scene where he lensed six feature films and directed everything from national TV spots to hundreds of product and branded content commercials in over a dozen countries on five continents for clients such as Verizon, Dell, Lenovo, Fisher Price, Air Hogs, T-Mobile and Firestone, to name a few.
In 2015, David pursued a project that would both draw on his personal experience and showcase the rich Latinx culture of South Texas. Inspired by Texas filmmaking legend, Robert Rodriguez, he returned to his hometown with a crew of eight to direct his debut feature film, Tejano that had its world premiere in 2018 where it took home the Audience Award from the Dallas International Film Festival and has been well received at numerous film festivals throughout the world and was acquired by HBO in 2020. In 2021, Legendary hand-picked David to direct an installment of the iconic horror franchise, Texas Chainsaw Massacre that would go on to have a successful premiere on Netflix in 2022 amassing more than 29M hours of viewership in its first week. David is attached to direct a horror feature for Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions.
Highland Film Group’s current slate also includes the action crime thriller Wardriver starring Dane DeHaan and Sasha Calle; John Stalberg, Jr.’s Muzzle: City of Wolves starring Aaron Eckhart; Allan Ungar’s action-comedy London Calling starring Josh Duhamel and Jeremy Ray Taylor; and Joe Carnahan’s survival thriller Not Without Hope starring Zachary Levi and Josh Duhamel.
Garcia is repped by Inclusion, WME, and Chris Abramson. Hanyok is repped by Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment and Meyer & Downs. McKenzie is repped by Inclusion, Verve, and Miloknay Weiner.
