After the surprisingly disastrous second season, True Detective fans have been holding on to the hope that the third season would be a return to the grizzled highs of the anthology show’s initial McConaughey/Harrelson installment, but there’s a new behind-the-scenes development that might make those fans a little worried. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Green Room director Jeremy Saulnier—who was supposed to direct half of season three’s episodes alongside series creator Nic Pizzolatto—has dropped out of the show after completing only two episodes over “scheduling issues.”
That’s the go-to excuse for every change like this, which means it’s impossible for us to determine if it’s a real issue with Saulnier’s schedule or if it’s something bigger than that, but at least he got two in the can before leaving. Whatever’s going on, Saulnier is being replaced on his half of the episodes by veteran TV director Daniel Sackheim, who has done episodes of The Americans and Game of Thrones. As THR points out, HBO was very concerned with making sure it had a good director on board before moving forward with the third season of True Detective, so the fact that it’s moving on to a new guy does seem like a problem, but we won’t know for sure until the new episodes—starring Mahershala Ali, Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorff, and Scoot McNairy—actually premiere next year.