©Courtesy of Dark Sky Films
Taylor Sheridan, Osgood Perkins, and Jordan Peele are reportedly among the frontrunners in the competition to earn the rights to make a reboot of the classic 1974 low-budget thriller, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The original Massacre, which featured the iconic villain known as Leatherface, had been directed by Tobe Hooper in 1974, and was followed by eight sequels between 1986 and 2022. The last entry was a Netflix version released in 2022, which was not regarded as a critical success.
Since 2017, the Verve agency has been managing the rights to the franchise. According to Deadline, a bidding competition for rights to a new film (as well as TV, games, and other spinoffs), will get underway this Monday, June 9. As reported by Deadline: “Talks for who’ll wind up with the Texas Chainsaw IP are beginning Monday as anywhere from five to eight studios and/or streamers are vying for the rights. Myriad notable creative entities have teamed up with studios to pitch Verve and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre rights holders on their vision.”
According to published reports, Osgood Perkins is floating the notion of producing and cowriting a new version that would be directed by Bryan Bertino in a package for NEON. Meanwhile, J. T. Mollner is reportedly proposing a television project for A24 that would include Roy Lee and Glen Powell in the creative mix.
Taylor Sheridan, one of the frontrunners, is a Texas native known for work on TV shows like Yellowstone, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, Lioness and Landman. He also wrote and directed the 2017 movie Wind River, but has no prior experience in the horror genre. Jordan Peele, however, produced horror projects like Lovecraft Country and Candyman.
More details will be released later. As of this date, no studio has officially announced any plans to produce a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre project.