Why Jeffrey Dean Morgan Opened Lead Role In New Bloody Horror-Comedy To A Different Actor Thoughtfully Explained By Producer

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A producer of Bloody Axe Wound has explained the surprising reason that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is not the leading man of the movie. The upcoming 2024 horror movie, which debuts on December 27 via RLJE Films and Shudder, was written and directed by Matthew John Lawrence and follows a young woman named Abbie Bladecut (Sari Arambulo) who becomes a real-life slasher killer in order to boost business at her family-owned video store. The cast also includes Billy Burke as Roger Bladecut, Morgan as Butch Slater, and Molly Brown as Sam Crane.

ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns recently had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with Bloody Axe Wound producer Hilarie Burton, who is perhaps best known for playing Peyton Sawyer on One Tree Hill and has also been married to Jeffrey Dean Morgan since 2019. She explained the Morgan, who is also a producer on the movie, felt that it might be "a conflict of interest" playing the leading male role, in addition to his commitments on other projects including the Walking Dead spinoff Dead City.

This led to Morgan stepping aside and the team "looking externally for [Roger] Bladecut." When Billy Burke was visiting for Thanksgiving, they showed him Lawrence's previous movie Uncle Peckerhead and the actor immediately said, "Send me that Bladecut script, send me that thing," and seemingly fell in love with the role. Read Burton's full quote below:

I think Jeff worried about a conflict of interest, a little bit, in producing this, but also having it be a vehicle for himself. And he was also filming Dead City and a couple of other projects at the time, so we were looking externally for Bladecut. And Billy spent Thanksgiving here with his family, and we're all just sitting around the couch, shooting the s--t, and we're like, "Do you want to see this movie, Uncle Peckerhead? It's weird. You're gonna like it." He watches the movie, and he's like, "Send me that Bladecut script, send me that thing." So, we sent it to him, and Billy was just like, "This is mine now. It's mine." And honestly, there's no one on the planet who could have played it better than Billy. We would have asked him if it didn't feel like such a huge favor to be like, "Well, will you move cross country and also come stay here for three weeks and be in makeup for six hours every day?" It's a big ask of your friend, and Billy just crushed it. He's so good.

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