The buzz is back. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, which has been dormant since a poorly received installment in 2022, is back in business. Deadline reports that rights holder Verve has the property on the market, with several notable parties interested in getting a cut.
According to Deadline, writer/director JT Mollner and producer Roy Lee are one of the groups involved; last year, their non-linear slasher Strange Darling earned solid critical notices from critics and horror hounds alike. If the Mollner/Lee duo saws off a piece of the franchise, it seems that Texas native Glen Powell would be interested in starring and producing the resulting project. Other notable bidders named in the Deadline article include A24, Lionsgate, and Neon; the latter has had a string of horror hits lately courtesy of Oz Perkins. According to a Verve representative, “Verve represents The Texas Chainsaw Massacre estate and is building out a multimedia strategy for the seminal horror franchise.”
What Is ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ About?
Made for a pittance by rookie director Tobe Hooper and inspired by the real-life crimes of Ed Gein, 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre centered around a group of teens who get stranded in rural Texas and run afoul of the demented Sawyer family. The Sawyers capture, kill, and eat anyone who crosses their path; soon, only one survivor remains to escape from the Sawyers and their hulking, chainsaw-wielding scion Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen). The film was an enormous success, and was hugely influential to the horror genre in the 1970s and beyond. In addition to its legion of imitators, the film also spawned a number of official sequels: Hooper made his own with the gonzo Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 in 1986. Two more sequels resulted in diminishing returns, although Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 had an early role for Viggo Mortensen and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation starred a pre-famous Renée Zellweger, and Matthew McConaughey. The franchise was rebooted in 2003 by Michael Bay‘s Platinum Dunes production company. A financial (if not critical) success, it was followed by a prequel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), a legacy sequel to the original (Texas Chainsaw 3D), another prequel (Leatherface), and another sequel (2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre).
The most recent installment in the franchise, 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was released on Netflix, was an attempt to do for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre what David Gordon Green‘s sequels did for Halloween, as they pitted an aging Leatherface against his nemesis from the original film. However, it failed to do that: in his review, Collider‘s Ross Bonaime called it “the worst film in a franchise packed with terrible choices and awful installments.”
A new Texas Chainsaw Massacre film is in the early stages of development. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
via Collider