Looks like you never can keep a good chainsaw-wielding psycho down: Twisted Pictures is in talks to buy the movie rights to **The Texas Chainsaw Massacre **and that lovable loon, Leatherface, with a view to relaunching it as – what else? – a 3D franchise.
Now, given that Twisted Pictures is also the gang behind the never-ending Saw series, expect what lingering love and affection you may have for the Chainsaw brand to be bludgeoned to bits beneath an onslaught of annual sequels. Of course, maybe we’re wrong, and the adventures of one of cinema’s great horror icons won’t simply be used as a convenient cash cow. There’s a first time for everything, we guess.
After all, we can all agree that Tobe Hooper’s 1974 original is a classic. The less said about the three official sequels, the awful 2003 remake and the completely unnecessary 2006 prequel to the remake, the better.
Yet those last two movies, produced by Platinum Dunes, made some decent coin, so there was always a chance that Leatherface might rev up his saw and go at it once more. But Platinum Dunes, it transpires, had leased the rights from Bob Kuhn and Kim Henkel, the rights holders proper, on a picture-by-picture basis, which paved the way for Twisted to move in with a multi-picture deal.
Stephen Susco, a horror specialist who gained brownie points by writing the remake of The Grudge, and then frittered them all away by writing The Grudge 2, will write the script. Carl Mazzocone, Oren Koules and Mark Burg will produce the new movie, or movies – and, just to further cement the possibility of an annual Chainsaw entry, rumour has it that Twisted is in talks with Lionsgate, or The House That Jigsaw Built, to distribute.
Of course, we wish everyone well, as there’s always a chance that we could finally get a Chainsaw pic worthy of the name. Fingers crossed for that – although if some bright spark ever gets traction on a Jigsaw vs Leatherface movie, we’re not going to be happy.